At last! We have decided to dedicate a post to the tabancos wine route in the city of the wine par excellence, Jerez de la Frontera, in the province of Cádiz. The Tabancora, which is how it is called, has emerged from the collaboration between the five tabancos in Jerez, located in the old part of the city and relatively close to each other, to promote this typical local establishment.
However, wouldn’t it be convenient to explain first what a tabanco is for all those who do not know it? The tabancos are typical local bars, whose appearance goes back nearly four centuries ago. There, groups of friends gathered around a glass of Sherry and the most varied food coming from this area. Here, wine was also sold in bulk and local flamenco singers were advertised, although perhaps the most typical thing is that the money each customer owes is written down on the wooden bar counter using chalk. Although they were about to disappear at the beginning of the 21st century, the tabancos are having again a highpoint.
We have to go back in time until 1925 to see the first tabanco of those which still stand in Jerez, which was called El Pasaje due to the access it had to two different streets. Even today it is still a great place to chat with friends. The second is called San Pablo. It was opened 70 years ago by Uncle Manuel in the neighbourhood of San Miguel, another clear example of lifelong tabanco. Here we can taste oloroso Sherry and also the most delicious typical tapas, such as groupers with tomato or the harvestfist with roquefort.
Another tabanco to stop by to get one’s strength back is Tabanco Plateros, where the main protagonists are Sherry, cheese and pork. This is a more modern tabanco than the previous ones, since it was opened in the 21st century. Not for nothing, however, the owners have sought that the tradition of Jerez typical bar is not lost in modern times. Here some wines are kept cold, something not very usual in the two tabancos mentioned previously, where the wine is stored in the traditional “boots”. We cannot forget to mentioned that a glass of sherry will cost us one euro in Tabanco Plateros, which is lately becoming more and more common in these times of financial crisis.
The newly opened Tabanco el Guitarrón is also part of this route, but it does not appear in the brochures because it opened when they had already been printed, so there are actually six collaborating establishments, not five.
Sherry, fino, oloroso, amontillado, oloroso dulce… A thousand different varieties of wine produced in this city in the province of Cádiz that can be accompanied by hundreds of tapas from the area like sausages from Chiclana, chicharrones, payoyo cheese offrom Villaluenga or fried fish, to say some. These are some of the attractions offered by Jerez de la Frontera to the world, although it certainly has many sites to visit the next weekend off.
Version in Spanish | Tabancora, ruta por los tabancos típicos de Jerez
Brochure in PDF file | Tabancora
