Spain’s Unique Gift to the World of Wine

Sherry is one of the world’s great fortified wines. In its dry form, it is drunk as an aperitif, as a substitute for a cocktail or sometimes as an accompaniment to soup or other courses of a meal. Sweeter forms are often enjoyed along with dessert, while chatting with friends or before retiring for the evening.

By Michael Moore

True sherry comes only from grapes grown in a relatively small area of southern Spain designated as Jerez y Manzanilla de Sanlucar de Barrameda. The warm climate and the chalky‑white soil of the region, along with the unique way in which sherry is made, give the wine its special character and flavor.

The Palomino fino grape is by far the most important of the three grapes authorized for making sherry. When used to make traditional white table wine, it produces an undistinguished product, but when used to make sherry, the result is spectacular. Pedro Ximenez grapes are used to make some sweet sherries and are blended with traditional, Palomino‑based sherries to make cream sherries. Often called PX, this white-wine grape is used in other parts of Spain to make a variety of wines. Small amounts of moscatel, a grape used throughout the world to make wine, is sometimes blended into sherry to make it sweeter.

There are two basic categories of traditional sherry: fino and oloroso. After the grape juice has completely fermented in stainless steel tanks, it is removed and classified by the wine maker according to its characteristics as either fino or oloroso. Wine alcohol is then added to bring the alcohol content of the fino to 15% and the oloroso to 17%. At this point the wine is placed in American oak casks and set aside to age.

This difference in the amount of alcohol is of fundamental importance in the production of sherry because the extra amount in the oloroso prevents flor from forming on the top of wine as it ages. Flor is a yeast that naturally forms and covers the surface of the fino, keeping air from the wine and preventing it from oxidizing. This lack of oxidation insures that the fino will be pale in color and have the distinct tangy flavor associated with flor. Oloroso, on the other hand, oxidizes, and as a result, becomes amber to mahogany in color and develops a more robust flavor.

After the wine has aged for a minimum of three years (usually five), some of the flor‑covered fino is removed from the cask, filtered and bottled. The remainder is fortified with additional alcohol, causing the flor covering to die, and creating a third category of sherry known as an amontillado. Because the amontillado has no flor covering, it darkens and oxidizes for the remainder of the remaining five years or so that it ages. The result is a wine that has characteristics of both a fino and an oloroso.

Within each of the categories of sherry, there are different types of wine available. A manzanilla, for example, is a fino from the seaside town of Sanlucar de Barrameda, an area conducive to the growth of flor. Manzanillas are very light and the tang produced by the flor is especially pronounced. The Spaniards are particularly fond of this taste and manzanillas account for 60 percent of all the sherry they consume.

Although sherry is made very dry, it is often sweetened by blending in wine made from PX or moscatel grapes. These sweetened sherries are called “cream” sherries and are particularly popular in Britain. Pale cream sherry is made by sweetening a fino and other cream sherries by sweetening olorosos. Sweetened amontillados are also made for the export market, but most connoisseurs consider them a waste of an amontillado.

Pedro Ximénez grapes are occasionally used on their own to make some excellent sweet sherries. Before fermentation the grapes are allowed to dry in the sun, a process that concentrates the sugars and results in some sweet, powerful wines with a raison-like taste.

Palo cortado is a style of sherry that is infuriatingly difficult to categorize as every producer has a different story about how it is made. It is probably best to say that it is a high quality amontillado. Since it is a wine that starts life as a fino, but eventually starts acting like an oloroso, it has – like an amontillado – traits of both wines. It is very rare and very expensive, making it something people often talk about, but rarely get a chance to drink.

The aging of a sherry takes place in a system of soleras and criaderas. This system, often simply called “a solera,” insures that the wine will remain consistent from one year to the next. The system consists of barrels placed in three or more tiers. When sherry is bottled, it is drawn from the bottom tier, which is known as the solera. This wine is replaced by wine from the tier above, which is known as the first criadera. This wine is in turn replaced by wine in the second criadera and so on until the top tier is reached – the place where the wine is first introduced to the system. Since no more than one‑third (usually much less) of the wine is removed from the solera tier, the system insures complete blending and many, many years of aging.

Unlike many wines, sherry does not improve in flavor once it is bottled. As a matter of fact, it begins to deteriorate and should be drunk soon after purchase. Generally speaking a fino should be drunk within 18 months of bottling; an amontillado within 24 months and an oloroso within 36 months.

Although enjoyed everywhere, the British and Dutch are by far the biggest consumers of sherry in the world. In 1999 the British bought 27.7% and the Dutch 26.5% of all Spanish sherry sold, figures that far exceed the 19.6% purchased by the Spanish themselves.

Sherry is a special wine with a unique taste that has long been appreciated. If you’ve never tried it, do yourself a favor and have a glass. You will probably enjoy it and might find that you want to add it to your list of favorite wines.