The wine is worth on the spot about 5_l._ the pipe, but the land carriage is expensive, and it is apt, when conveyed in skins, to be tapped and watered by the muleteers, besides imbibing the disagreeable smack of the pitched pigskin. The only way to secure a pure, unadulterated, legitimate article, is to send up _double_ quarter sherry casks; the wine is then put into one, and that again is protected by an outer cask, which acts as a preventive guard, against gimlets, straws, and other ingenious contrivances for extracting the vinous contents, and for introducing an aqueous substitute. It must then be conveyed either on mules or in waggons to Cadiz and Santander. It is always as well to send for two casks, as _accidents_ in this _pays de l’imprévu_ constantly happen where wine and women are in the case. The importer will receive the most satisfactory certificates signed and sealed on paper, first duly stamped, in which the alcalde, the muleteer, the guardia, and all who have shared in the booty, will minutely describe and prove the _accident_, be it an upset, a breaking of casks, or what not. Very little pure Valdepeñas ever reaches England; the numerous vendors’ bold assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. As sherry is a subject of more general interest, it will be treated with somewhat more detail. [Sidenote: SHERRY.] CHAPTER XIV. Sherry Wines--The Sherry District--Origin of the Name--Varieties of Soil--Of Grapes--Pajarete--Rojas Clemente--Cultivation of Vines--Best Vineyards--The Vintage--Amontillado--The Capataz--The Bodega--Sherry Wine--Arrope and Madre Vino--A Lecture on Sherry in the Cellar--at the Table--Price of Fine Sherry--Falsification of Sherry--Manzanilla--The Alpistera. Sherry, a wine which requires more explanation than many of its consumers imagine, is grown in a limited nook of the Peninsula, on the south-western corner of sunny Andalucia, which occupies a range of country of which the town of Xerez is the capital and centre. The wine-producing districts extend over a space which is included--consult a map--within a boundary drawn from the towns of Puerto de Sª. Maria, Rota, San Lucar, Tribujena, Lebrija, Arcos, and to the Puerto again. The finest vintages lie in the immediate vicinity of Xerez, which has given therefore its name to the general produce. The wine, however, becomes inferior in proportion as the vineyards get more distant from this central point. [Sidenote: FOUR CLASSES OF SOIL.]