During the regicide disgrace of the Protectorate, sherry suffered a short-lived eclipse but this arose more as a result of matters in Spain than from the change of government in England. During the Civil War and afterwards the nobility, who had been the greatest buyers of wine, could no longer buy it on their accustomed scale. Some were exiled and others impoverished. Although the Puritans detested drunkenness and gluttony, they had no objections to drinking in moderation. The awful heresy of teetotalism was not to emerge for another three hundred years. ... But the beginnings of the Commonwealth coincided with the start of years of terrible plague in Jerez which resulted in the disruption of the wine trade for over two decades.
J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 24
All his [Columbus'] efforts, his intrigues with the Church and the monarchy, his triumphs and disappointments, the elaborate preparations for his voyages, the voyages themselves, all were centred on Andalusia. From Andalusia he gathered his forces, and many of the men came from the Sherry towns. He set forth from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on his third journey, to discover the island of Trinidad in 1498, and Sanlúcar was soon established as a major port for the new American trade; it was the port from which Pizzaro set sail twenty-five years later on his way to conquer Peru. Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who discovered Florida, was the son of a Jerez wine grower.
J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 12
