A noble sherry for the autumn

Bodegas Hidalgo-La Gitana, Amontillado Seco Napolen, Sanlcar de Barrameda, Spain 50cl bottle (£11.50, Ellis Wharton Wines, 01726 825255, www.ewwines.co.uk; £11.95, Noel Young Wines, 01223-566744, www.nywines.co.uk).

Certain Mazanilla sherries, during the ageing process when the wine is slumbering in butts of American oak which form part of the time-honoured solera system, just don't taste like the others. These rare barrels have a deeper, nuttier, figgy flavour, and so they are removed from the process and kept apart to age oxidatively, and they are known as Amontillados.

I adore this style of wine. It is bone dry, stunningly aromatic, mahogany coloured, headily flavoured and bitingly savoury. During the Peninsula War, the Hidalgo family cleverly sold their wines to both the French and British sides, so it's only fair that today they make a Jerez Cortado called Wellington and also this delicious Amontillado Seco named after his opponent!

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Chill it down just a few degrees and drink it with grouse (after you've deglazed the roasting pan with half a glass). This is an exceptional food and wine combo. Try it with charcuterie, rillettes, pte and mature hard cheese again serious matches. This noble and exceptionally well-priced wine is a quintessential autumnal flavour, and if you have never tasted it, then you will not believe your taste buds.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006.

He has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.