Sherry Festival in Jerez de la Frontera
Jerez's sherry festival
takes place on the first Saturday of September every year. Known locally as the
Autumn Fiestas, Fiestas de Otońo, this is a three week party involving
sherry, horses and flamenco. The origin of the festival is the annual
celebration of the grape harvest.
Jerez de La Frontera, one of Spain’s three sherry producing towns, celebrates
its wine harvest with an abundance of colour and joie de vivre on the weekend
closest to 8 September, with the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady.
You
should try to book a
hotel in Jerez well in advance as they tend to fill up very quickly.
The festivities kick off with a flying start as the Andalusian -usually
eye-catching - queen of the vintage occupies her seat of honour with her
handmaidens in tow. This queen of sherry, responsible for every auntie's
favourite aperitif, is raised onto her glorious wagon draped with all manner of
pleats, flora and succulent grapes. Within a very short time children tail the
cart, hoping to catch sweets and goodies tossed into the air from mask-wearing
courtiers. The masses converge on the Plaza de Arenal to pay further respects to
the queen as the bodegas (sherry houses) let the sherry flow.
Be sure to stick around for a packed program of parties, bullfights, motorcycle
races, exhibitions, concerts and flamenco dances; and not to forget the church
mass followed by the blessing of the vines.
Jerez has the good fortune of lying in the Albarriza zone, renowned for its
chalk-rich and sandy sun-baked earth, that provides more than adequate growing
conditions for the sherry that ends up on your auntie's table. The grape is Palomino.
Very ordinary really, but let us not forget that it is the process that makes
Sherry, not just the grape.
 Once pressed it is stored in oak butts. Soon flor
(yeast) naturally appears on the surface, miraculously preventing oxidisation
whilst giving the wine its distinct flavour. Note that a sherry from San Lúcar
will taste different to one from Jerez or El Puerto de Santa María precisely
for its flor. Sherry from San Lúcar is also distinguished due to the
area's salty breezes that modify the sherry into the a fine, fine fino,
manzanilla.
The fortification process is the most important part. Thereafter, the sherry is
blended with other wines of different ages through the soleras and criaderas
and then stored.
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