Winecast: Sherry, Part III

Hello everybody and welcome to the Winecast. This is part three of what was up until recently meant to be a three part series on Sherry, but wait for it, there's going to be a part four. Because Sherry. That said, what I've got left to cover in part four isn't going to be super long, so let me crowdsource things a bit and ask you, my listeners, to leave some suggestions as to anything you think I've missed or that you want addressed more thoroughly, so please leave those in the comments. Also, I've had so much stuff to cover that I don't think I've done a good job of giving you any visual sense for the Hedes region and its wines, but fortunately for me, my fellow YouTuber and friend of this channel, Luke Derricott, has a great video on Hedes and on Sherry over at his very worth checking out channel, The GastroTraveler, that I'll link to in the description, so please check the video and his channel out. What's on the plate for this cast? Pretty much a survey of the different styles of Sherry that are on the market, except for the age designated Sherries that I'll cover in part four, along with a couple of other brief topics and whatever you all think I'm missing, so do let me know in the comments, and with that, let's get started on styles. The designation Fino, a word that means fine or delicate in Spanish, identifies a wine from Hedes that's only aged biologically or entirely under the influence of flora. As we've covered in the last cast, the flora protects the wine from exposure to oxygen and thus creates a reductive environment for the aging of the wine. Typically, reductive environments help maintain fresh fruit flavors in wines, but thanks to the neutral flavor profile of Palomino, the grape this wine is based on, Finos don't usually express with a strong fruit character, and the effects of reduction show up in the brightness and intensity of its other flavors that include brine, iodine, and almonds. What fruit character there is tends to express as citrus oil or peel, as well as through a signature aroma that's the product, among others, of the acetaldehyde produced by the flora over ripe apples or their peels. The overall character of a Fino really is more attributable to its time under flora than to the varietal character of the Palomino that it's made from, and the effects of the flora can be pretty wide-ranging. The protection from oxygen keeps Finos light in color, even though the average age of many top quality Finos is around four to seven years before bottling. The flora's habit of consuming glycerin in the wine under its care leaves that wine with the very light and delicate mouthfeel that probably contributed to its name, and the flora's consumption of any sugar left in the wine post-fermentation results in wines that are among the driest in the world. Closely related to Fino, in fact really just a Fino that's been aged within the municipal boundaries of the coastal town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, is the much celebrated style of manzanilla. What, apart from the location of aging, distinguishes manzanillas from Finos? Well, the relatively humid maritime environment around Sanlúcar that gets some of the most consistent access to the humid Poniente wind in the Jerez region helps promote a more vigorous expression of flora than inland. The flora here is more active, meaning that manzanilla soleras need to be refreshed with sacas and rocios more often than Fino soleras to make sure the flora stays nourished. The flora also maintains a fairly consistent thickness in Sanlúcar, keeping the wine under it consistently away from oxygen, whereas the flora in other parts of the Sherry Triangle can be more variable in thickness and in its ability to keep the wine free of air exposure year-round. The end result is a wine with much of the same character as a Fino, only more so. The palate character is fresher, the aroma is more intense and especially prone to notes from flora like yeast and iodine, and a signature descriptor, chamomile, which is what manzanilla means in Spanish. Though it's been the practice in Jerez for some time to fine and filter Finos, the months and manzanillas before release to help accent their lightness and clarity, a recent trend has been to release unfined and unfiltered, or at least minimally fined and filtered, versions of these sherries, identified by the term enrama, that are prized by critics and drinkers for their complexity and depth of character. On the other end of the dry sherry spectrum are wines that are aged entirely oxidatively, the Olorosos. Since there's no flora in the mix, the key processes in the development of an Oloroso are evaporation, and by extension, concentration, as well as oxidation over a lengthy period of aging, with the average age of the wine in most top quality Oloroso Soleras being at least several decades. The base wine that Olorosos start from is also typically selected for its richness, or gordura in Spanish, and this choice has an effect on the character of the finished wine, with Olorosos having both an oxidative character that presents in an intensely aromatic nose, in fact the name Oloroso means aromatic, of toasted walnut, toffee, aromatic wood, spice, and chocolate, among other savory notes, as well as a round full mouthfeel and a dark color. Usually, thanks to evaporation, an Oloroso will end up with around 20 to 22% alcohol by volume, but examples with slightly higher or lower percentages abound. Though these are dry wines, it's not unheard of, though certainly not universal or particularly common either, for producers, even of top quality Olorosos, to add just a touch of Pedro Ximénez to round out some of the deep flavors and aromas just mentioned. This sweetening will be quite a bit lighter than what you'd find in the sweetened styles, and it won't be indicated on the label. The trickiest styles to make sense of in sherry are the so-called intermediate styles, Amontillado and Palo Cortado. An Amontillado is a Fino or a Manzanilla whose floor dies, leaving the wine to continue aging oxidatively. The floor can die naturally or can be killed deliberately through fortification. Most wines that end up becoming Amontillados have spent around three to eight years under floor, which represents a fairly broad range in terms of the effect that floor would have on the aging wine. This style is meant to capture aspects of both biological and oxidative aging, showing the finesse of a Fino or Manzanilla and some of the briny notes that result from floor, as well as a certain nuttiness and depth from oxidative aging. And though the overall goal of the style is fairly straightforward, its realization can vary widely from solera to solera, depending largely on how much time individual wines added to the solera spent under floor before they began to age oxidatively. Palo Cortado is a curious style because there are no rules governing its production and the only criterion for designating a Palo Cortado is organoleptic, or based on sensory assessment. According to the Consejo Regulador, or the Regulatory Council for Jerez, a Palo Cortado is a wine that has the delicate bouquet of an Amontillado with the body and palate of an Oloroso. Historically, wines of this type were accidents of sorts. They were wines originally intended to age biologically, but after a typically short period of time under floor, began to show characteristics that were more in line with Olorosos than with the style they were intended for. Its name, in fact, comes from this process starting with the wine's initial classification after fermentation, when a wine with a particularly fine character suited for biological aging would be designated with a slash mark, or a raya, drawn on its barrel. The raya can also be called a palo, or stick in Spanish, and if a wine began to show Oloroso-like characteristics, the cellar master would indicate this change in the wine by drawing another slash mark across the first one and bisecting it, thus creating a cut stick, or you guessed it, palo cortado. Once the wine's character has been identified, the floor is killed through fortification and it's moved to a solera of similar wines. Since this style is typically identified early on in its process, palos cortados usually spend less time under floor than amontillados do, and often have a greater natural richness and depth. The styles we've been discussing are dry, but there are sweet cherries. In fact, these days, sweet cherries make up the bulk of the market, and these fall into two camps, dry cherries that have been sweetened and cherries that are naturally sweet. Starting with the first category, the most common, probably because the palate character of Olorosos lends itself to sweetening, are cherries that are driven by Olorosos, though other styles may appear in the blend, and lightly sweetened to a level of around 11.5 to 14% sugar. They're usually sweetened by adding a bit of naturally sweet Pedro Ximénez sherry, or more rarely some Moscatel-based sherry. More commercial and expensive bottlings may use rectified concentrated grape must, or RCGM as they call it in the trade, a sweetener derived from unfermented grape juice, but processed so that it imparts virtually no varietal character and just a neutral sweetness to the wines it's added to. Most of these cherries are marketed as cream cherries, with the most famous of these being Harvey's, but there are lots of cherries made in this style. Originally a separate style, East India sherry, was a sweetened and matterized sherry that got its name from being used as ballast in ships bound for India, much like Madeira. Now it's a designation that's been revived by only one producer, Lustau, and is made like any other cream sherry, but is meant to simulate the style of cherries that were once transported across the seas. Medium cherries are driven by Amontillado and are designated medium because of the weight and structures of their palate, as well as for generally less sweetness, often quite a bit less than cream cherries. Pheno-driven sweetened cherries are designated as pale creams, and are usually sweetened with rectified concentrated grape must instead of Pedro Ximenez in order to maintain a light and, well, pale color. They're usually sweetened to a level a bit lower than the 11.5% minimum for creams. What about the naturally sweet styles? Things get a little more interesting here since the process diverges somewhat from that of the dry styles. First, Pedro Ximenez, or less frequently Moscatel grapes, that are already very ripe are harvested and then sun-dried on mats in a process called asoleo, or sunning in Spanish. After asoleo, the grapes are pressed and the resulting must, which is very high in sugar, is fermented very slowly, largely because of the high sugar content. Fermentation isn't only slow, but it's limited too, and the result is only about a percentage point or two of alcohol from fermentation, leaving lots and lots of sugar in the must that's then fortified to between 15% and 18% alcohol by volume, and then placed in solera, or more unusually, but not uniquely for Jerez, aged as a vintage wine. As mentioned, these wines are either made from Pedro Ximenez or Moscatel, with the minimum residual sugar for PX wines being 21%, but most examples having RS as high as 30% Because the Pedro Ximenez must is so dense and already low in water, relatively little water is lost to evaporation or to osmosis in the wood of the barrel, the two major means of water loss in aging wines. As a result, a relatively high amount of alcohol by comparison is lost by evaporation, and PX wines can actually decline in overall alcoholic strength as they age, so they're often re-fortified to a range between 15% to 22% alcohol by volume. These wines are famously viscous, dark, almost black in fact, and often have an unparalleled complexity of palates, showing notes of chocolate, toffee, figs, caramel, coffee, licorice, and toasted nut, among others. If the wine was aged in solera, the date the solera was established will often appear on the label, but be sure not to confuse that with a vintage date, and for that designation look for the word Muscatels are much rarer than PXs and are made primarily from Muscato of Alexandria. They come in a range of sweetness, though all of them are quite sweet, and some as sweet as most PXs. They're usually not as heavily fortified as PXs, typically clocking in at around 15% to 17% alcohol by volume, and their body color and sensory profile is lighter as well, showing notes of flowers, especially white flowers, honey, and citrus, no surprise given the varietal character of Muscat. Though I don't usually mention individual producers, this style is so modest in size that one producer truly does stand out as a benchmark for the style, and that's Valdespino with their Muscatel Toneles, all of which is aged in just one 900 liter barrel, or tonel, that's periodically refreshed with new wine, and that thus functions as a one barrel solera. Hard to find, but well worth checking out. Thanks for joining me for another wine cast. Like I said, there will be a part four, so please let me know what you think should go into it, in addition to coverage of the age-designated sherries. As always, I hope this cast was interesting, helpful, and informative, and if it was, please like and subscribe if you haven't already. And apart from comments about what should go into the next cast, I'd love to hear whatever you have to say, so please don't be shy about leaving a comment. I'm your host, the Unknown Winecaster, and I'm out. Enjoy the grape, but always enjoy it responsibly.