Heritage22 October 20244 min read
Sedgwick's Old Brown Sherry: South Africa's winter classic
By South African Wines
For more than a century this deep amber fortified wine has been keeping South Africans warm through winter nights. Here is why "OB's" earns a place in your drinks cabinet.
Old Brown is the bottle that comes out when the weather turns. South Africans have been drinking it since 1916, and almost nobody uses its full name. It is "OB's", and it has been OB's for four generations.
It helps to clear up what it actually is, because the word "sherry" on the label sets the wrong expectation. Spanish sherry is made from white Palomino grapes. Sedgwick's Old Brown is not: its deep mahogany colour comes from a blend that includes red varieties, and the result is sweeter and rounder than a fino or an amontillado. At 17.5% it sits above table wine and below spirits. That turns out to be the right place for a drink you want to sip slowly in front of a fire.
Where it comes from
Captain James Sedgwick set up his distillery in Wellington, in the Western Cape, in 1850. The Old Brown followed in 1916 and never went away. Other fortified wines came and went. This one survived because it did one simple thing very well: it made cold nights bearable.
That has given Sedgwick's a particular place in South African life. It was never a special-occasion bottle. It was the everyday one, in fishing villages along the coast and in mountain towns inland, and at £13.69 it still undercuts almost everything else in the drinks cabinet.
What it tastes like
Pour it and the colour tells you most of what you need to know: amber deepening to mahogany. The nose is dried fruit, raisins and prunes mostly, with caramel behind it and a lift of warming spice.
The first sip is brown sugar and molasses, then toffee, then something closer to dark chocolate. It is sweet, but the fortification carries a gentle heat that stops it turning syrupy. The finish is nutty and spiced, and it goes on longer than you expect.
This is not a wine that rewards analysis. It rewards a cold evening.
How to drink it
Neat, or over ice, is how most South Africans take it. Plenty warm it gently first, which pushes the spice forward and turns the whole thing into something closer to liquid pudding.
It also makes a very good hot toddy, and this is where it earns its place in a British winter. A measure of Old Brown, hot water, a spoon of honey, a cinnamon stick, a slice of lemon. Central heating has never quite managed the same effect.
If you want something lighter, lengthen it with citrus juice over crushed ice. The sweetness needs the sharpness of lemon or lime to push against.
In the kitchen
South African cooks have used Old Brown for as long as they have been drinking it. A splash into a beef stew or a lamb casserole caramelises down and adds a depth that is hard to place.
It glazes ham and beef particularly well, where the sweetness plays against the salt. For pudding, pour it over vanilla ice cream, or work it into a sticky toffee pudding.
Where to go next
The obvious step sideways is South Africa's other sweet fortified tradition. Darling Cellars Wildflower Hanepoot Jerepigo at £11.99 is made from Hanepoot, the Cape name for Muscat of Alexandria, and it is floral where Old Brown is dark.
For more concentration, the straw wines are worth the jump. Vergelegen Semillon Straw Wine at £14.49 is the easier introduction. Piekenierskloof Samson Straw Wine at £31 shows how serious the category gets when someone really commits to it.
If you want a sweet red rather than a fortified one, Fairview Sweet Red is the bottle to try. To taste across the whole style before settling on a favourite, the sweet wines mixed case does that in one go, and the rest sits in our South African dessert wines collection.
Sending it home
For South Africans in the UK, Old Brown is not really a drink. It is winter braai fires and family gatherings, and it is one of the few things from home that tastes exactly the same here as it does there. That makes it a good gift: cheap enough to send without ceremony, specific enough that whoever opens it knows you understood.
For British drinkers who have never tried it, the case is simpler. Spanish sherry can feel formal and madeira can feel expensive. This is neither. It is warmth in a bottle for under £15, delivered anywhere in the UK.
Buy one for winter cooking and entertaining, and you will find yourself opening it on ordinary evenings instead.
