Sherry Week 2023
In my opinion Sherry is the single-most underrated style of wine from Spain. Even among wine lovers it suffers from misconceptions about taste (‘It’s too sweet!’), how to serve it (‘In a tiny glass from your granny’s cupboard?’) and strength (‘It’s fortified: is it as strong as a spirit?’).
But as any Sherry aficionado will tell you, this style of wine is as nuanced, enjoyable and complex as any fine wine from Spain. In fact it isn’t even a single style – but we’ll come to that later…
Sherry comes from Southern Spain, in the so-called ‘Golden Triangle’ of vineyards that lie between the towns of Jerez, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María. Sherries are fortified wines, meaning that a small amount of grape spirit (brandy) is added to them, after fermentation, to give them greater longevity and stability.
What is Sherry?
Sherry is an aged white wine that’s matured by being passed through a series of 600-litre barrels, in a system known as a solera. The solera system allows for fractional blending of the wines. The barrels in a solera are arranged in different tiers or groups, called criaderas, according to their age.
Barrels in a Sherry solera at Bodegas Hidalgo in Sanlúcar de Barrameda Credit: Julie Sheppard
The oldest criadera holds wines that are ready to be bottled. When wine is removed from a barrel for bottling, that barrel
