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Sherry, also known as Jerez (in Spanish) or Xérès (in French), is an official DO in Andalusia, Spain.
edit Tasting
Sherry is a fortified white wine, meaning they add grape spirits in the winemaking process, raising the alcohol level above that of a regular table wine – in this case, to between 15.5% and 22%.
Sherries range from light, bone dry aperitifs – a perfect accompaniment to shellfish – to dark, heavy dessert wines. In between these extremes are a variety of distinctive, nutty wines. These are not your grandma’s Harvey’s Bristol Cream. These wines are tantalizingly complex. They can only come from the swathe of land they are produced upon. And they are some of the most labor intensive wines on the planet.
A rundown of the different types of Sherries:
- Manzanilla is the lightest and most elegant of the fino sherries, and can only come from the seaside village of Sanlucar de Barrameda, with its humid microclimate and salty air.
- Fino is light, bone dry, fresh, yeasty, a little salty, complex. You should drink an open bottle within a day or two.
- Amontillado is, essentially, an aged fino. The flor is allowed to die or is killed off by adding more alcohol, and then it is allowed to age in contact with the air, like an oloroso.
- Palo Cortado is an extremely rare fino sherry, an amontillado that is aged so long it takes on the depth and darkness of an oloroso, while remaining startlingly dry.
- Olorosos begin life as beautifully aromatic, nutty dry wines but are sometimes sweetened by blending in some Pedro Ximenez.
- Pedro Ximenez are the sweet dessert sherries. The grapes are often dried before pressing, and the result is a dense, almost black wine.
- Cream sherry was developed for the British market, and traditionally it’s an oloroso with 15% or more Pedro Ximenez added. Good cream sherry can be delightful. A lot of it is terrible quality stuff, though.
Any sherry that isn’t from Jerez DO isn’t a sherry at all!
Palomino is the most common grape varietal in Jerez, and its relative blandness is perfect for the expression of the soils, the yeasts, and the elaborate winemaking method – called the solera method – that makes sherry what it is.
Pedro Ximenez is another varietal, and is responsible for the sweeter, stickier sherries.
Moscatel is also grown in Jerez, though it is dying out. It is used for sweetening sherries, and it is also made into a wine on its own.
edit Facts and figures
- Main varietals: Palomino, Pedro Ximenez, Moscatel
edit History
edit Geography
Jerez is in the Southwestern corner of Spain, in a small triangle bordered on one side by the Atlantic. Jerez de la Frontera, the town which gives sherry its name, is surrounded by barren looking, chalky dunes.
The white, crumbly soil, known as albariza, contains a lot of calcium and fossilized seashells, drawing comparisons to the soil in champagne.
Like the soil in champagne, it imparts a distinctive minerality to the wine. Because it is so crumbly, they pack it down with rollers, which helps keep in some moisture in the summer heat and frequent times of drought. Not all the soil is white chalk.
There are vineyards planted in a mixture of sand and richer clay, but the chalky white soil is the most prized, and the other soils produce a lower grade of wine.
edit Climate
edit Viticulture
To make a fino sherry, the grapes are crushed but not pressed, and then they are fermented and very lightly fortified. The wine is then put into oak barrels (called butts, by the way) which are only filled three quarters of the way full. Over the next few weeks, a bready yeast grows on the surface of the wine, eventually completely blanketing it.
This yeast, known as flor, is a wild yeast indigenous to the area, and it can’t survive outside the humid maritime climate of the region. It makes a semi-permeable shield over the maturing wine, allowing just enough oxidation to increase the wine’s complexity. It also gives the wine a subtle yeastiness.
With oloroso sherry, winemakers press the grapes, ferment the juice, then add more alcohol than they do with finos. The pressing of the grapes produces a richer, rounder wine, and more alcohol means flor will not form, since yeasts can’t live in alcohol above 16.4%. Unprotected by the layer of flor, olorosos are matured in contact with air. Also, they are allowed to age as they move slowly through the solera (see below), so they take on a darker color and an elegant richness.
The solera method is a complex system of blending older wines with younger ones of the same style and quality, so that the wines continue to come out the same year after year. Imagine a stack of barrels on top of each other, all of a certain style of wine, from different vintages. Imagine fifteen of these stacks. The bottom of the fifteenth stack contains the oldest wine. They draw some of the wine out of that last barrel, bottle it, and top up the barrel from the row above it. And on, up to the top. So sherry is a product of wines of many years, and it never carries a vintage, though sometimes it will carry the date the solera was started.
edit See also
