Sherry from Jerez - Spanish Wine Region

The following excerpt is taken from Oz Clarke’s Encyclopedia of Wine and describes the Andalucía wine-producing region of south-western Spain, most famed for its production of sherry. The wine itself is named after the town of Jerez de la Frontera. The prominent grape variety here is the Palomino.

Sherry Wine

Andalucía, a vast spread of eight provinces stretching right across the sunbaked south of Spain, welcomes millions of tourists each year. But relatively few of them ever stray far from the Costa del Sol. Those who do discover a land quite different from the rest of the Iberian peninsula as this was the part of Spain longest occupied by the Moors—the words ‘la Frontera’ tacked onto many local place names, including that of Jerez, reflect how for a full hundred years these towns were on the frontier between Christian and Moorish Spain. Whitewashed walls, cool courtyards and roof terraces on the oldest houses testify to eight centuries of Arab dominion, as do the place names, local crafts and even the inevitable flamenco dancing. Solitary farmhouses are a feature of the countryside, set in the eastern provinces among landscapes of olive trees or cereals, irrigated fruit trees or early vegetables, and in the west among fields of sunflowers, cereals and vines.

Andalucía overflows with vines, but there are far more in the west than the east. All four of Andalucía’s DOs (Jerez y Manzanilla, Montilla-Moriles, Málaga and Condado de Huelva) lie to the west of Granada, and the DOs themselves account for over half Andalucía’s vineyards. But it seems strange that the famous wines made in such a hot climate should all be fortified—until you taste the unfortified wines. It is hard to get excited by any of the bland, flavourless whites, and those are the good ones. The bad are horrific. Thank goodness the Andalucíans evolved a way to turn their basic table wines into nectar to accompany the incessant socializing and lengthy meals. For this is a part of Spain where lunch never starts before three in the afternoon, and you consider yourself lucky if you sit down to dinner by midnight, after delicious hours of tapas—copious nibbles of olives, anchovies, fried peppers, salted almonds, squid—and glass after glass of chilled fino.

In Jerez the tulip-shaped copita glass would contain fino sherry, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, manzanilla, in inland Córdoba it might be Montilla, and in Málaga, down by the coast, a stiff tot of the ‘mountain’ wine so loved by the Victorians.

Despite the relentless, glaring heat, the sherry region, in particular, is well suited to vines. The best soil—finely grained, dazzlingly white albariza which sweeps right across the central growing area—contains between 60 and 80 per cent chalk and acts as a sponge, soaking up and storing the ample winter rainfall until the vines crave it in the height of midsummer. Accordingly, yields are high, for the vineyards of Jerez, all trained on wires, are among the most modern in Spain, and the Palomino Fino—the main grape for sherry—is always a generous bearer.

But the wine not turned into sherry often finds a buyer who will distil and age it to make the rich, dark brandies for which Andalucía is also famous.

Source: Oz Clarke’s Encyclopedia of Wine