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Grégoire, can you explain the differences between sherries?
It’s very complicated, even for me, someone who works with ex-sherry casks every day. Behind this Anglo-Saxon word, there are actually several appellations: Pedro Ximénez, Xérès, oloroso, fino, amontillado, palo cortado, manzanilla, PX… .
To go into more detail, sherry wines (or xérès in French) are fortified Spanish wines originating in the region of Andalusia, more precisely around the cities of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María. The main grape varieties used to produce them are Palomino (for dry sherries), Pedro Ximénez and Moscatel (for sweet sherries).
There is a GI or D.O. for Jerez-Xérès-Sherry and a D.O. for Manzanilla-Sanlúcar de Barrameda for manzanillas. After fermentation of the grape juice, the wine is fortified with neutral alcohol (generally up to 15-17% for finos/manzanillas, 17-22% for others). Several types of aging coexist and sometimes complement each other. Under a yeast veil (flor) for finos and manzanillas: a layer of yeast forms on the surface, protecting the wine from oxidation and giving it its fresh and dry character.
Oxidative for olorosos, PX, and amontillados: the wine ages in contact with air, developing aromas of nuts, caramel, and dried fruit. And solera: a fractional aging system where wines of different ages are blended to ensure consistent quality. To better understand, I invite you to look at the photo I refer to in my work.
Is sherry still drunk, or is it primarily produced for its barrels?
Sherry is hardly drunk anymore. In fact, rum and especially whiskey saved these wines because they needed their barrels for the aging process. Twenty or thirty years ago, the bodegas were all on the verge of bankruptcy. But the regulatory authority in the Jerez region realized that there was an opportunity to capitalize on the interest in spirits for their barrels and decided to regulate their sale. A certification system for sherry barrels was therefore put in place, and since then, for a barrel to be certified, it must have been new before receiving sherry wine.
This provides work for the region’s coopers and winemakers. In reality, it is the cooperages that have benefited most. Many have created or purchased bodegas just to use the wine for their barrels. This has brought some order, but it has also led to inflation in the price of sherry barrels. And this has not been good news for whiskey, because in the end they often only have access to new barrels that have been used for one year of Oloroso.
As a barrel specialist, tell us about botas.
They are 500-liter barrels in which Jerez wine has historically been aged for several years using the solera system. These old barrels are rarely emptied, except when they are completely exhausted. That is why very few of them remain today, most having been replaced by newer, certified barrels. And when you do come across them, it’s best to be vigilant: some depleted barrels sometimes pass into the hands of unscrupulous coopers who “embellish” them a little—a quick clean, a scrape inside, a quick re-seasoning—before reselling them as if they were genuine 20-year-old barrels.
Read also: Style Focus – When rums aged in ex-sherry barrels take center stage