Move over granny: new bar concept bets on sherry’s revival

Entrepreneurs Amelia Rope and Ben O’Brien are seeking £1.5 million to launch a sherry and dessert bar designed to tap into the category’s changing image.

A new hospitality concept aiming to reframe sherry for a new generation is seeking £1.5 million in seed investment, as interest in the fortified wine continues to build.

Amelia Rope, founder of Amelia Rope Chocolate, and Ben O’Brien, founder of Sourced Market, have teamed up to launch ‘Move Over Granny … Sherry Reimagined’, a bar concept built around all seven styles of sherry, sherry cocktails, and a menu of desserts and savouries.

Sherry, but not as you know it

The proposed bar will serve Fino through to Pedro Ximénez alongside trifle and ice cream. These will not be standard offerings: the trifle recipes will be seasonal with a “unique twist”, while the ice cream will feature flavours not available in retail. All dessert recipes have been developed by Rope, who previously won awards for her chocolate bars.

Alongside the sweet focus, the concept will also include a small selection of hot and cold savoury dishes “for traditionalists”.

The target audience spans nostalgic indulgencers, sherry aficionados and wine-curious millennials. The atmosphere is described as hip, with vinyl records playing, an “informative and enthusiastic” team guiding guests through the range, and events hosted by sherry producers, authors and Masters of Wine.

Riding sherry’s changing narrative

The project lands at a time when sherry is working to shed long-standing stereotypes. César Saldaña, president of the Consejo Regulador, has previously argued that sherry’s association with older drinkers was the result of marketing decisions made in the 1970s and 1980s, rather than anything inherent in the wines themselves.

“Sherry was presented, perceived and consumed as a ‘drink’, rather than as a wine,” Saldaña has said. In contrast, in Andalusia, a chilled glass of Fino is firmly part of the dining table, underlining sherry’s reputation as one of the world’s most food-friendly wines.

That renewed emphasis on gastronomy is now central to how the category is being communicated. Saldaña has also highlighted the impact of the Consejo’s decade-long investment in the certified “Sherry and Brandy de Jerez Route”, which has helped make Jerez one of Spain’s leading wine tourism destinations, attracting more than 400,000 bodega visitors each year.

Against that backdrop, Rope and O’Brien’s dessert-led bar is positioning itself as part of sherry’s wider reappraisal — one that leans into flavour, experience and context rather than tradition alone.

The founders are currently seeking £1.5 million in seed funding to bring the concept to life.

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