What is Sherry? Spain’s most misunderstood wine.

Where Sherry comes from

Sherry is a fortified wine from the far south of Spain, in Andalusia. It can only be made in the “Sherry triangle” between the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María. The name Sherry is simply the English version of Jerez.

The main grape is Palomino, a fairly neutral white grape that thrives on the region’s brilliant white albariza soil, a chalky soil that holds water through the hot summers. Pedro Ximénez and Moscatel are used for the sweet styles.

Flor: the secret of dry Sherry

After fermentation, the dry base wine is lightly fortified and put into old casks that are not filled to the top. In the cellars of Jerez and Sanlúcar, a layer of yeast called flor grows on the surface of the wine. It protects the wine from oxygen and feeds on alcohol and glycerol, giving the wine a pale color and a tangy, salty, almond-like flavor.

Wines aged under flor become Fino, or Manzanilla when they are aged in Sanlúcar de Barrameda by the sea. If the wine is fortified to a higher strength, the flor cannot survive and the wine ages with oxygen. That creates Oloroso: darker, rounder and full of walnut and dried-fruit flavors.

The solera system

Most Sherry ages in a solera: rows of casks with wines of different ages. When wine is drawn from the oldest casks for bottling, they are topped up with younger wine from the next row, and so on. Over time, the young wine takes on the character of the old.

Because of this system, most Sherries do not carry a vintage. Instead, they offer remarkable consistency, and some soleras contain traces of wine that is decades old.

The main styles

Fino and Manzanilla are pale, dry and fresh. Amontillado starts life under flor and then continues aging with oxygen, so it combines both worlds. Palo Cortado is a rare style with the elegance of Amontillado and the richness of Oloroso. Oloroso is dark, dry and powerful.

Sweet Sherries are made from sun-dried Pedro Ximénez or Moscatel grapes, or by sweetening a dry Sherry, as in Cream Sherry. Those sweet export styles made Sherry famous, but they also gave it an old-fashioned image.

A family devoted to dry Sherry

In this episode of WineMasters, Tim Atkin MW and Christy Canterbury MW visit the Hidalgo family, an old Sherry dynasty that has always focused on the dry styles, especially Manzanilla. They call it the driest wine in the world, because the flor eats up all the sugar.

Serve Fino and Manzanilla well chilled with olives, almonds, ham or seafood, and drink an opened bottle within a few days, like a white wine.