Sherry
A fortified wine from Jerez in southern Spain, ranging from bone dry to intensely sweet. The dry styles are aged under a layer of yeast that keeps oxygen out; the sweet styles are made from grapes dried in the sun.
Quick Facts
About Sherry
What sherry is
Sherry is wine from a defined region around Jerez in Andalusia, fortified with grape spirit after fermentation. It runs from completely dry to thick and sweet, and the range between those two ends is wider than any other wine category.
It is blended through a solera, a system of stacked barrels where older wine is topped up with younger. Nothing is a single vintage, and consistency is the point: a bottle bought this year should taste like the one bought five years ago.
Flor, and why it matters
The dry styles are aged under flor, a living layer of yeast that forms on the wine’s surface and seals it from the air. That is what makes fino taste of almond, bread and salt rather than of oxidation.
Where the flor dies or is never encouraged, the wine oxidises instead and turns nutty and darker. That single difference explains most of the range, and knowing which side of it a bottle sits on tells you more than the price does.
The three worth knowing
Fino. Pale, bone dry, saline. Aged entirely under flor. Serve it cold, treat it like white wine, and drink it within a few days of opening.
Amontillado. Starts under flor, then continues once the flor has gone. Two lives, hence the character: dry, but nutty rather than saline.
Pedro Ximénez. Made from grapes dried in the sun until they are nearly raisins. Almost black, syrupy and very sweet, and as often poured over ice cream as drunk on its own.
Beyond those three sit oloroso, which never had flor at all and is dry despite its richness, and manzanilla, which is fino made on the coast at Sanlúcar. Both are worth meeting once the first three are familiar.
Keeping it
Fino lasts days once opened rather than months. It is wine, and the palest styles perish faster than almost anything else a drinks cupboard holds, so refrigerate it and finish it inside a week.
The oxidative styles are far more forgiving, because oxidation has already done its work. Amontillado holds for weeks and Pedro Ximénez for months. Much of sherry’s poor reputation comes from a bottle that has been open since Christmas, which is a storage problem rather than a wine problem, and it is worth saying plainly because it is the single easiest thing to fix.
Using Sherry
Usage
Poured as a modifier in stirred and spirit-forward drinks, where a dry sherry adds salinity and length without adding much strength. Pedro Ximénez goes in by the barspoon instead, for sweetness and body at once.
Top Tips
- Refrigerate fino and finish it within a week. It is white wine in all but name.
- Buy half bottles of the dry styles. A full bottle will oxidise before you get through it.
More to explore
Common Questions
Does sherry go off?
What is flor?
Is sherry sweet?
What is a solera?
Made with Sherry
Guide by Jerry Can Spirits