Manzanilla Sherry

Fino by Another Postcode

Manzanilla is fino by another name and a different postcode. Same production and the same ageing under flor, but it can only be called manzanilla if it is aged in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on the coast.

That is a rule about place rather than about method, which is unusual even among protected wine names. The same wine aged fifteen miles inland would be a fino and could not use the word.

It is worth knowing because it means the two are not different qualities of the same thing. A manzanilla is not a better or worse fino; it is a fino that grew up somewhere the weather did something particular to it.

The Sea Air Does the Work

Sanlúcar is cooler and more humid than inland Jerez, so the flor stays thick through more of the year and the wine spends longer protected from the air.

It comes out paler, lighter and noticeably more saline than a fino from Jerez. That salinity is the reason to reach for it specifically, and it is a genuine difference rather than a marketing one.

Serve It Properly Cold

Cold, and in a normal wine glass rather than a thimble. The salinity is the point and warmth flattens it, so a manzanilla served at room temperature in a small schooner is being set up to disappoint.

It is a wine, so treat it as one. A decent white wine glass gives the aromatics somewhere to collect, which a traditional copita does not.

As Fragile as Fino

It shares fino’s fragility as well as its method. Once open it is a matter of days, refrigerated, before the freshness goes.

Buy half bottles if you drink it occasionally. A full bottle opened for one glass will be past its best long before it is finished, which is the same trap that gives sherry its undeserved reputation.

The practical test is smell rather than taste. A manzanilla past its best loses the sea-air lift first and reads flat and slightly cardboard before it tastes obviously wrong, so a bottle that no longer smells of anything much is finished.

Common Questions