HARVEYS 1796 COMPETITION

SPANISH TRAVEL QUIZ

SET BY JAMES KNOX TWELVE prizes of four bottles of sherry from Harveys '1796' range are on offer to the winners of this Spanish travel quiz. The first correct entry opened will also win a £30 book token.

Sherry is one of the classic wines of the world, the product of the chalk-rich soil in the hot south-west corner of Spain centred on Jerez de la Frontera. The Moorish influence is still strong in this part of Spain, extending to the whitewashed walls and cool dark interiors of the bodegas or warehouses where the casks of maturing sherry are stored.

From these bodegas are emerging authentic styles of sherry hitherto undiscovered by all but the most adventurous wine drinkers.

Sherry is a naturally dry wine but is generally sweetened with other wines to suit a wide public taste. The Harveys '1796' selection is a range of four classic dry sherries: Manzanilla (crisp and very dry with the salty tang associated with wines from the coastal town of Sanlucar de Barrameda), Superior Fino (pale and dry with a delicate flavour and pronounced for aroma), Palo Cortado (a rare wine combining the characteristics of an amontil- lado and oloroso with a deep bouquet and full dry flavour), and Fine Old Amontillado (amber-coloured with a deep nutty flavour resulting from aging in oak casks). All these wines are available from Victoria Wine outlets.

In English eyes: Match the authors to the quotations: a V. S. Pritchett; b Penelope Chetwode; c Compton Mackenzie; d George Borrow; e Gerald Brenan; f Elinor Glyn.

1 'I'm awfully sorry,' said the boy. 'Did I step on your toe? I say, would you like to see the Armoury?' And we were taken to the Armoury by Alfonso XIII, the King of Spain, who was still a month or so away from his 16th birthday.

2 [On a sword of Toledo] I have a strong arm, and dashed the point with my utmost force against the solid granite. My arm was numbed to the shoulder from the violence of the concussion, and continued so for nearly a week.

3 Of Spanish wines, alas, I am not competent to write, having acquired a strong distaste for alcohol at the age of 16 when I drank too much Vouvray on Shrove Tuesday at my school in Tours.

4 Seville was in those days an earthly paradise where the air one breathed seemed all gaiety and happiness.... I used to go every evening to the Kursaal, a large dancing hall.... Twenty or more girls provided the partners and if one pleased them one could sleep with them for a small sum so long as one of their regular lovers was not in need of their services.

5 They showed me with pride the special omolette [sic] they made for His Majesty. The Knights all drank huge glasses of milk with it. The nuns were like excited blackbirds, poor, dear old things! (Oh ... would not you hate to be a nun! Shut up all the year round with women? I tremble to think of the atrocities I should be driven to commit!) 6 Here most earthily and most powerfully one feels oneself alive. Yet here one is confronted (and above all at the Escorial) with the Spanish preoccupation with death.

Moorish matters: 1 Which spot, named by the Moors 'the promontory of the cave' is commemorated in London?

2 Who said about what: 'You have built but what you, or anyone, might have built anywhere else; but you have destroyed what was unique in the world.'

3 Who, at the place now called the Suspiro del Moro, was accused by his mother of weeping 'like a woman for what you could not hold as a man'?

4 In which city does a minaret, once crowned by four bronze balls, now serve as the bell tower to the cathedral?

People and places:

1 In which city was Cervantes imprisoned for debt?

2 In which city was St John of the Cross imprisoned after being kidnapped?

3 In which university did Fray Luis de Leon and Miguel de Unamuno lecture?

4 In which city is the Virgen del Pilar venerated?

5 In which city is Gaudi's unfinished church of the Sagrada Familia?

Grandees: 1 Which Englishman numbers among his titles, Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo?

2 What Spanish title is equivalent to Prince of Wales?

3 What did Pedro the Cruel present to the Black Prince which was described as 'great like a racket ball' and which can be seen in the Tower of London?

4 Which English policeman is an Earl of Trafalgar?

Write your answers on the entry form opposite.