(Decanter) - Just over a month ago, I wrote in this blog about Sherry’s tragic decline, and about some of the new unfortified, terroir-based approaches of younger producers in this distinguished, chalk-soiled region of southern Andalucia. What, though, of Sherry itself? Moribund?

Anyone who’s had a chance to taste the greatest, purest Sherries will fervently hope not. For the last three decades, though, the challenge has always remained the same: renovating the wine’s image, and making it a source of youthful gastronomic curiosity. Many have tried; most failed.

Not, though, Jesús Barquín, and his collaborators in Equipo Navazos, a singular Sherry bottling and exporting company which only celebrated its tenth birthday last December, and yet which may now sell more bottles of old, pure, unblended Sherry than any rival. (Singular, not least because it actually buys the sherry from those rivals.)

A word on intriguing names, first of all. Jesús (who has long been an atheist) points out that his own first name is a common one in Spain, and carries no more religious overtone than does ‘Mary’ in English. Navazos, meanwhile, is the traditional name used for vegetable allotments in Sanlúcar de Barrameda whose sweet ground water is lifted up through the sandy soils, unlikely as it may sound, by tidal pressure. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, moreover, the primary Equipo Navazos series of releases has been called ‘La Bota de …’. The Navazos approach may be innovative, but the great historical and cultural traditions which lie behind sherry and the Jerez region is very important to Barquín and his collaborators (the Equipo).

Every wine region needs a few extraordinary individuals to champion its cause, and Barquín is one. His family background was in gastronomic grocery stores, and he grew up going to restaurants with his parents and eating well. His keen intelligence, though, swiftly propelled him through university law studies to a professorship, though he might easily also have pursued scientific studies. He’s a criminal lawyer who has written two books on torture and mistreatment, who is interested in the limits between torts and crime, and who has recently been researching alternatives to prison.

Along the way, he spent a lot of time in Brussels, Strasbourg and Florence, researching the relationship between Spanish law and European law … and visiting French and Italian vineyard areas. He became, in other words, a wine fan in the kind of deeply committed, comprehensive and scholarly way you might expect of a law professor.

Since his University base was in Granada, it wasn’t long before he emerged as one of Spain’s leading experts and writers on sherry – a wine which, with all its complicated austerities, has always seduced the academic mind and palate. He also forged a close friendship with Eduardo Ojeda, one of Jerez’s leading tasters and blenders, who works for the notably successful Estévez group, owners of Valdespino and La Guita Manzanilla.