Sherry Wine of Andalucía

While Andalucía is known for its olive oil and Ibérico hemp, it also produces sherry, a fortified wine made near the town of Jerez. Sherry has a protected designation of origin, and all wine labeled as sherry must come from the Sherry Triangle, an area between Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María. Sherry has been traditionally regarded as a very good aperitif wine, or a dessert wine if we talk about the sweet styles of sherry. But we are convinced, and this is the way we treat sherry here at home, that this is a great wine to accompany food. And this is, as I said, this is the way we enjoy sherry here in Jerez. So what we're doing is trying to pass the message that sherry, because of the enormous variety of styles, and the versatility, and the power, and that capacity that the sherry has to enhance the taste, the flavors of food, is a great companion for it. So every second year we have a competition here, which would join restaurants, chefs, and sommeliers from seven different countries. In each of those countries we also run this national competition. Basically the whole idea behind tapas is going from one flavor to the other, going from a langostino down to some chorizo, some manchego cheese, some Iberian ham. When we drink fino with it, what we're doing, we're cleaning our palate in every sip. So you appreciate every step in your tapas menu thoroughly, without mixing flavors in your palate. Cesar Saldana, Director General of the Regulatory Board that governs all sherry production, explains the unique way that sherry is produced. Sherry is basically the result of a long history, a long tradition. We've been making wines for 3,000 years, and it's also the result of very precise natural conditions. It all starts with a very peculiar soil that we call the albariza, which is capable to absorb the rainfall that we get in just a few days during the year, and three white grape varieties. Palomino grape variety is the most important one, and then we have two other grape varieties, Pedro Jimenez and Moscatel, that we use for the sweet styles of sherry. At the beginning what we do is make a white wine. There is a very special natural phenomenon in this area. The white wines will develop a kind of cream in the surface, a kind of layer of yeasts, which is what we call floor, and that floor will confer very special organoleptic characteristics to that wine. It will be the decision of the winemaker either to keep the floor or taking the floor out to open the possibilities of different sherry styles. If we manage to keep the floor, we will have what we call the finos and the manzanillas. These are extremely light wines, very pale in color, very pungent, beautiful aperitif wines, beautiful also for the seafood, very refreshing, but very dry. If we increase the alcoholic strength of the wine, and therefore we get rid of the floor, the wine loses that layer that is protecting it from direct contact with the oxygen, and it gets much darker in color, kind of amber color, mahogany color, very aged. This is how we produce what we call the amontillados and the olorosos. These are much stronger, deeper wines with very deep aromas, which wood will gain a very prominent role. The old wines, amontillados and olorosos, are concentrated wines. Most of the time, very old wines, small quantities, and to be consumed in small quantities, and not on the same set. You can keep a bottle a few weeks, including one year, to consume, because the wine remains in good condition. Sherry can be divided roughly into three different styles. First, there are the pale, dry finos and manzanillas. These are the wines most Andalusians will enjoy with their tapas, and they are excellent with simple, straightforward dishes of olives or almonds, ibérico or serrano hams, or well-aged cheeses. Then there are the more intense flavors that come with darker hue and darker flavor, amontillados and olorosos, and are considered optimum with meats, especially wild game and grilled red meats. Finally, there are the sweet sherries, made by blending sweet Pedro Ximénez with the oloroso to create cream sherries that are terrific with soft, ripe cheeses, especially blue cheeses, and of course with foie gras. All the different styles of sherry that we produce, either the very fine, pangent finos or the very bold, very structured olorosos, they also age through a very special type of aging process that we call the solera method. The solera is basically a system in which we are taking the wine to different scales of maturation, blending the wines with the other vintages, with wines with different degrees of maturation, to have a consistent quality at the end of the process, maybe after 5, 10, 15 years, it depends on the type of sherry. This is how we produce the dry sherries, but then those dry sherries can also be blended with the sweet wines that we produce out of the Pedro Ximénez and the Moscatel grape varieties. So when we speak about the solera system, we're talking about different scales of maturation in the aging of our wines. Here in the lower row of casks is where we have the older wines. This row we call them the solera, and this is coming from the word suelo, meaning floor, right? So this is where the wines that have matured for longer are always kept. Here we have what we call the first criadera and the second criadera. We can have different scales of maturation, all right? Now, when we need to bottle some sherry, we will always take that wine from the lower casks, so from those casks in the solera. And we only take a small fraction out of each barrel, the same quantity from each of the barrels in the solera row, right? This is what we bottle. Of course, we have to filter and we bottle it. So now the quantity that we have taken out from each of the barrels in the solera will be replaced by this wine, which is a little younger, right? The one in the first criadera casks, right? So we transfer that same quantity into the next scale of maturation. We continue doing the same from the second criadera into the first. And we can have as many criaderas as you wish. I mean, there are some systems here in Jerez with maybe 12, 15 criaderas. Obviously, we don't place them one on top of the other. We have them in different places. But the important thing is that we have always those scales of maturation perfectly identified and that the young wines will continue always the same path because this is the youngest of all the criaderas that we will give entrance to the wines from the last harvest. The young wine will enter the youngest criadera, will be blended already with wines that have been sitting there for years. Then that blend will be re-blended in the next stage and then re-blended until they reach the solera casks. One sherry wine that's gained a lot of attention among chefs in Sommelier recently is Manzanilla, a type of pale, dry, fino sherry that is only made in the small town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda at the edge of the sea where the great Guadalquivir River empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Now, the way Manzanilla is made, we get the young wine from the Calamino grape in our vineyards, that's pressed, we get the free-run juice, and we only use free-run juice for Manzanilla, and that young wine is totally dry. The fermentation is complete. When I discovered Manzanilla, which was many years ago, I discovered it in its right context when I came here to Spain, and above all to Andalusia. The tapas culture is very much an Andalusian eating concept, and the quintessential tapas wine has always been Manzanilla. Sherry is a great wine for food because, as I said, when you drink, when you sip a little bit of Manzanilla or fino, I mean, your taste buds are alerted immediately. Sherry is a great taste enhancer because in every sip you're getting your palate excited, so you appreciate every step in your tapas menu thoroughly without mixing flavors in your palate.