Wine: Spanish sherry’s many virtues

The fino points: Exploring Spain’s fortified wines

Tristan BragagliaMurdock

Sherry often gets a bad rap . Sweetstyle Harvey’s Bristol Cream, despite being the world’s best-selling sherry, does little to positively fortify this wine’s reputation .

The southwestern Spanish region of Jerez has been a historic wine region for centuries . Under King Alfonso’s rule in the 1200s, knights were rewarded with vineland in the region . The Valdespino wine company can trace direct lineage to such a knight, while the Palomino grape’s eponym is thought to be linked to another knight of the same time period .

Palomino is dry sherry’s most important varietal, accounting for nearly 98 per cent of the region’s plantings . Low in acid, neutral on the nose with sweet juice, it’s suited for the fortified wines of the region .

Impacted by cool westerly winds from the Atlantic and dry, arid breezes from North Africa, Jerez weather can go from cold to hot in a matter of hours . The plots are grown on chalky white albariza soil . Calcareous and porous, they reflect sunlight back up to the vines while also retaining water during the warmer months .

Sherry production is centred predominantly around the town of Jerez, though nearby Sanlucar de Barrameda produces its own iteration of dry sherry known as Manzanilla . The latter’s proximity to the ocean’s salty sea air creates a unique environment for its wines .

Sherry styles break down into two categories: sweet and dry . Sweet sherries, based on Moscatel or labelled Pedro Ximinez (PX) are treacle-heavy, loaded with dried fruit and occasionally notes of honey . PX sherries can have high levels of residual sugar and are best served with desserts, nuts, cheeses and dried fruit .

Dry sherries can be daunting . Winemaking minutiae and less conventional cellar techniques can cause severe analysis paralysis . At their core, fino, manzanilla, oloroso and amontillado start similarly . Palomino grapes are fermented in neutral vessels before they’re left to mature in barrels . During the maturation process, almancenistas — the region’s wine negociants — taste through barrels to determine quality and the direction in which the sherries will evolve .

While amontillados and olorosos will be fortified to a higher level to help protect and stabilize the wine, finos and manzanillas are less fortified to allow for the development of a yeast veil, known as flor, on the wine’s surface .

The difference between biological aging (flor development) and oxidative aging cannot be understated . The veil atop finos and manzanillas retains the wine’s characteristic citrus, almond and brine notes by preventing oxygen from permeating it, resulting in a pale colour . Olorosos wines, meanwhile, are mahogany-hued, richer in texture and fuller . Without a protective yeast veil, the interplay of oxygen on the aging process impacts the colour . Nutty, coffee and dried fruit notes develop .

Amontillado rides the line between biological and oxidative aging: What started as a wine under a flor will gradually move into oxidative aging, either through refortification or the yeast naturally running its course and dying out . Depending on cellaring techniques, this style varies, though aspects of fino and oloroso will be highlighted in the final wine .

House styles are linked to sherry’s most important process of winemaking: the solera system . At its simplest, the system ensures a consistent wine style . Each house operates slightly differently in these regards, and each wine produced will have its own solera . The solera system involves multiple tiers of barrels, forming different levels in the blend . There can be as few as three tiers and as many as 10 .

As the almancenistas taste the sherries, they determine the best time to transfer wines from one tier to the next . To do this, a third of the final tier will be bottled . This will then be topped up with the preceding tier and so on, until the first barrel in the tier is topped up with new wine . This is integral to biological sherries as the introduction of oxygen and new wine will be beneficial to the flor’s development . As such, there will always be a fractional percentage of the initial wine being blended in from when that solera system began,

Tio Pepe is a widely available sherry and will dispel the myth that all sherry tastes like Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

some of which dates back to the 1800s . Given that, exceptional care must be taken to ensure the style is respected; it takes years to right a wronged solera .

The complexity of the sherry’s dry styles is worth celebrating . Robust enough to hold up to most dishes, it makes a great aperitif and digestif wine . Despite the tireless work of almancenistas, these wines are undervalued and overlooked .

The LCBO carries some classic examples— Tio Pepe and Barbadillo — but it’s also worth looking into All the Right Grape’s wine portfolio . It carries the greatest number of sherries in Ontario and always has lovely offerings .

When Tristan Bragaglia-Murdock isn’t pulling corks at Fauna, chances are his nose is either in a glass or in a wine book .