With that, your young, hip friend will taste it, and all thoughts of grandmas and bingo nights will be far from his mind. All you have to do is try this oloroso from Bodegas Dios Baco to gain a whole new appreciation for… well, you know.

The color is like 40-karat gold: so dark it's brown, but still golden enough to look good.

The nose is dominated by roasted nuts, vanilla and warm caramel. There's also plenty of wood there, like someone melted down 500 lbs. of nut-cluster chews and poured the viscous mass into a toasted oak barrel.

Tasting this oloroso is like bobbing for apples (or fruit, anyway) in the aforementioned barrel. You get a mouth full of nutty, woody, lightly-sweet and creamy wine, along with a surprising amount of tangy fruit. It doesn't sneak in there until mid-palate, but keep bobbing and you'll find it.

Oloroso isn't often as heralded as fino "s" word is, but a bottle like this should be. For $20, this will last you a long time (you don't need more than a small glass of it after dinner), and the open bottle will stay pretty fresh with regular vacuuming or gassing*. You can't say that about menthol ointment… or bingo night.

Cheers,
TSW

* - Are you thinking to yourself, "Vacuuming? … Gassing?" If so, check out the WoW write-up on preserving open wine, "Suck or Gas."

Sherry is not hip, cool or young. Even amongst less-young people, it's not cool to sip sherry. In the U.S., sherry is drunk by people who speak with that highfalutin accent that sounds vaguely English and says we've been filthy rich since back when we were English.

Wine drinkers have it bad enough in the "coolness" category, and I don't mean to make it worse by recommending a beverage that will make you smell like menthol ointment and Arthriticream by association.

So, we won't use the dreaded "s" word to refer to this beauty. Just call it oloroso, which is the sort of sherry it is. Oloroso is sherry (damn, I used it again!) that matures in contact with air (rather than in sealed-up barrels) and is fortified to at least 15.5% alcohol. This one is 18%, so keep it away from Aunt Mabel if she's a mean drunk.

So, in addition to avoiding the "s" word and sounding as smooth as this beauty tastes, "oloroso" is more specific, too!

If you're worried that, through clever and persistent probing about just what oloroso is, the cool crowd in which you hang will see through your rouse, here's a tip to help you navigate one such difficult grilling:

You: "Want to try some oloroso?"

Your friend: "Sure… I guess. What is it?"

You: "Spanish. Here you go."