A PROBLEM SHERRIED IS A PROBLEM HALVED
A wise MW (Master of Wine) once told me that his desert island drink would be sherry. He wasn’t meaning your Nana’s Bristol Cream, but the vast array of incredibly complex, mostly bone-dry fortified wines produced in Andalucia, southern Spain.
The majority of sherry starts as a dry white wine from the Palomino grape, which is then graded, with the finest and most delicate then very lightly fortified, allowing a naturally occurring “Flor” yeast to grow on top of the wine in the barrel. This prevents the wine from oxidising or turning to vinegar. It’s then aged for up to eight years to create Fino (Tio Pepe) and Manzanilla (near the coast), the lightest sherries to have chilled as an apéritif.
If the Flor stops growing, then oxidation occurs, and the wine is put into the “solera”, a tiered system of up to seven barrels where the young wine is gradually blended with older wines with only a small portion to be drawn out each year to create Amontillado or the rare Palo Cortado.
The most robust wines are fortified to 18 per cent and remain in the solera for up to 30 years to create Oloroso. This extended ageing is the secret to sherry’s joyous complexity and depth-of-flavour.