CHEAP and CLASSIC - Sherry Wine

It is the wine you either love or hate. One of the most unique and historic wine styles. And on top of it, it is usually a bargain. Sherry has a very long history and even though the region started producing wine a few thousand years ago, the wines are still often misunderstood. I just recently traveled to Jerez, the heart of the sherry production, so today we're going to dive deep into the wine that has some salivating and some wrinkling their nose. I wasn't aware of how rich the history of Andalusia, the home region of Sherry is, but it has some of the oldest evidences of human civilization in Europe. Caliph is the oldest still standing city in Western Europe and Andalusia was the starting point for Christopher Columbus's voyages to America. Trade and sea travel was also an important factor in the development of the region's favorite wine, Sherry. Winemaking in this area started in 1100 BC when the Phoenicians arrived and when it soon after became an important trading hub, wine was an indispensable factor in keeping the crews happy on long ship voyages. Sherry developed a reputation for aging well and that was important in a time before domain bottling when wine was transported in barrel for months or even years. The name Sherry is also a sign of its reliance on the export markets as it is an English corruption of the name of the city of Jerez and the English market was and continues to be a very important market for Sherry. When I walked through Jerez visiting the wineries it became evident to me that Sherry used to be a product of enormous national pride, making the producers rich during times of boom. At Gonzales Bias for example, one of the biggest producers in the region, I got to see the luxurious pavillon and rooms that were built especially for the visit of the Spanish queen in the middle of the 19th century. But there were ups and downs in the history of Sherry and today the wine is probably better than ever, but it's not in very high demand. There are several different styles of Sherry and we will taste a broad selection of them today. Real Sherry has to be fortified by addition of alcohol and it is matured in old wooden casks, the so-called solera system, for an extended period. An important factor when it comes to the different styles is the activity of a yeast, referred to as flour. Flour develops on wine if a barrel is not filled to the top. So the yeast grows in the headspace of a barrel, covering the wine like a blanket. This layer protects the wine from rapid oxidation, but it also influences its smell and taste. Wines aged under flour till the end are generally classed as finos and they tend to have 15 ABV. If a wine is fortified at the start to 17 ABV or more, the yeast can't develop on top of the wine, so the wine oxidizes, develops brown color and nutty notes and these wines are generally classed as olorosos. This is definitely not all and I will go into more specifics in a minute, but my throat is getting dry, so let's taste these beauties. Leon has put together a selection of different styles, sweetness levels and price points. Sherry is one of those wines where you can get some of the best examples aged for decades at really low prices, which is amazing. This is actually I think the most widely distributed sherry in the world, Tio Pepe's Fino and it's actually surprisingly good. This wine was actually developed by the founder of Gonzales Bias, Manuel Maria Gonzales, who dedicated it to his uncle Pepe, who had taught him everything he knew about winemaking. Manuel was a banker who got bored with his job and wanted to get into wine, so he started the winery in the 1830s and made it what it is today, one of the biggest brands representing sherry all across the world. This is the winery with the fancy pavilion and rooms developed for the queen and this logo is probably one of the most iconic logos in the wine world. So at Gonzales Bias, I got to see the Solera system at work and it's worth spending a little bit more time on it. So the Solera system is usually depicted as a pyramid where young wine is on top and then gets filled into the second layer from the top to the third and then to the bottom layer before it gets filled into bottles. That's not actually how it works. Usually there are lots of barrels in the room and the winemaker then blends them together. What is a fact though is that a Solera is always a blend of different wines and different vintages. The fresh wine coming in every year and being pumped into the other barrels on regular occasions also supplies nutrients to the floor which can continue to grow as young wine, fresh wine brings in new food for it to eat. The Solera system is also interesting because there is always some of the very old wine in there. So when Solera was actually started, it's quite important for the development of the flavor profile of its wines. What is also important to note is that new wood is not a factor in winemaking for sherry. You don't want to impart any toasty notes through the barrels. You basically just want a vessel that contains the wine. At Gonzales Bias, I learned that today the used barrels are actually good business as they're being sold on to the whisky distilleries for them to age their whisky in sherry casks. So this wine is based on the grape variety Palomino Fino which is fermented to 11-12% of alcohol and then alcohol is added in order to fortify it to 15%. It remains for a minimum of 4 years in the Solera system and then it gets bottled. So you can see that it is light golden in color. This is a very typical color for a Fino sherry. Pretty light so you don't really see that it was aged for a long time in barrel. But almost instantly you can smell the aroma that the yeast give to the wine. On the one hand you have obviously wine flavor like lemon zest, a little bit of bruised apple. On the other hand you have this bouillon cube curry flavors that come from the yeast cells. So there's something really umami about the smell already. On the palate it's super fresh, salty, lively, just delicious. I really like this style because it just makes the mouth salivate. It really goes well with lots of different fish dishes, so lighter dishes. But you don't have to eat anything with it. You can just sit in the sun at the beachfront, drink this or just close your eyes imagining you're at the beachfront. Whatever you prefer. But the thing is with this style in particular that some people, maybe quite a few people actually hate this. It's a bit of an acquired taste just like beer and coffee. You really have to get used to it in order to enjoy it. Because for some people it smells like the wine is corked or the wine is dusty. So not necessarily appealing. I even talked to somebody from the sherry industry who isn't from Spain and he said when he first tasted sherry he thought, man this is corked, I can't drink it. But now he really enjoys it. For me I think it was right from the start it was something that I really liked. But my wife for example just hates it. On the palate you really have this beefiness, this umami character. There's so much freshness but it's not acidity. The acidities tend to be fairly low for sherry. I think this is at 4 grams which is pretty low. But yeah it's just salty and it just makes your mouth salivate which is a good thing in my opinion. I'm going to rate this 88 points. I think it's very good and at that price point it's a real steal. And yeah if you haven't tasted a Fino sherry this is a very good entry point. So you can identify real sherry by looking at the seal which is usually at the back of the bottle. And this doesn't have a seal so this isn't real sherry. So this is the 2018 Cortado La Barajuera by Luis Perez. Luis Perez was the winemaker and one of the oldest producers in sherry and he founded this winery in 2002. So this is actually one of the youngest, the youngest in this lineup at least. Ironically they are trying to produce the most old school sherry styles. Sherries like they were made back in the day. So this wine is actually not fortified but the grapes are harvested at full ripeness and then they are dried a little in the sun to get really concentrated grape juice and fermented to a level as high as 16 ABV. So as the wine is not fortified it cannot be a sherry. And on top of that this is actually also not made in a solera. It's made as a single vintage wine. You can see the vintage up front here. And it is aged for four years in barrel. I've tasted quite a few of these wines that are made outside of the sherry system and I usually like them a lot. They can be tremendously interesting and absolutely delicious and I hope this is no exception. So as you can see the wine is quite a bit more golden, slightly copper in color which also shows that there was more oxidative aging than in the previous wine. The nose is also less influenced by the floor flavors. So there's more apricot, a little bit of peach character coming through. But there's also a little bit of brininess, curry flavor, bouillon cube. So all the good stuff. On the palate it has quite a bit more richness and concentration. There's some caramel notes coming through. There's also quite a lot of freshness and grip there. So a beautiful texture that also really gets me going. I'm going to rate this 93 points. I think it's absolutely delicious, beautiful wine. Not really sherry though. When I first started learning about sherry there was always talk about the Sherry Triangle consisting of the cities of Jerez de la Frontera, San Luca de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa Maria. Only wineries from the Sherry Triangle were allowed to mature sherry or make sherry. There were some other communes that were delivering grapes to the Sherry Triangle but they were not allowed to make sherry themselves. In 2022 this changed. So now other communes outside of the triangle are also allowed to make sherry. So there's no beautiful Sherry Triangle anymore. It's more like a sherry lot or circle or whatever. Make something up. So next up we have the Barbadillo Principe de Barbadillo 30 year old Amontillado. This is classified as a VORS, a very old and rare sherry. And this is an Amontillado, a different wine style. So Amontillados start their life as a Fino aging under the floral layer and at some point they turn into oxidatively aged wines. So the floral layer either dies off or the winemaker just adds a little bit more alcohol so that the floral layer dies off. So you have both elements. You have the natural maturation under the floral layer and the oxidative part without the floral layer. So from my understanding this wine was aged for eight years under the floral layer and then for the rest of the period in American oak barrels in order to give it this oxidative flavor. Amontillados tend to be more brownish in color but let's have a look at this one first. So if you're not confused already, Barbadillo is actually located in San Luca di Barameda and San Luca is famous for the fact that it has the ideal conditions for growing floral layers. It's quite a bit closer to the sea or it's very close to the sea. It's very humid there and it is cooler all year round. Therefore the floral layer can grow all year round and you get very thick floral layers there. So if you're producing a Fino in San Luca you get more of this floral flavor there on top of the saltiness that comes from the sea. Only that people don't call it a Fino in San Luca, they call it a Manzanilla. And Manzanilla actually means chamomile as far as I know. So are you confused now? You should be. So another cork. This is actually fairly rare that you have to pull out your corkscrew twice in a sherry tasting. But most of them are sealed under those little stoppers. But why not? So this is actually more amber colored with a little bit of brown and golden, golden brown. Kind of reminds me of the 159 year old port, remember? Great stuff. So when you smell this, well when I smell this I'm in heaven. This is beautiful. It smells of walnuts, a little bit of almonds. There's also quite a bit of volatility. So you often get that in sherry flavors of vinegar. But just a tiny bit, it just lifts the whole profile quite a bit. I do like a little bit of volatility. And yeah, this is just complex. You also have those slight yeasty notes together with the nutty flavors. And that's just a beautiful mix. And on the palate, I mean, wow. It's just rich, salty, really umami, great expression, beautiful freshness and liveliness. Amazing stuff. This has 21.5% of alcohol, so it's actually intense. The alcohol obviously also adds some flavor and some expression to it. But I mean, this is just a delicious, delicious wine. So I'm going to rate this 98 points. This is outstanding, really, really great stuff. I don't know what the price is, Leon bought it. But I'm guessing that it's fairly affordable considering this is just stunning. As always, you can find the wines in the description and there's also a link to WineSearcher. So if you want to check out the price in your market, you can do that by tapping that link. So let's talk grape varieties. The most important grape variety by far is Palomino Fino. Grape variety that is not really used much in the rest of the wine world, but works really well for sherry. And this kind of makes up the vast majority of wine from the region. Apart from Palomino, there's also Pied de Jimenez, also known as PX, which is usually used for making a really sweet, very syrupy, concentrated wine. And then there was also Moscatel. And these three grape varieties made up the traditional grape varieties used for sherry. But with those recent regulatory changes, other grape varieties were also added to the list. Grape varieties like Beba and Peruno, so varieties that I have never heard of in the past. And they also just make up a tiny, tiny part of the mix. So I don't know how relevant they really are, but they are allowed. So let's move on to the next wine, which is the Lustrau Oloroso Don Nuno. The wine is labeled as a secco, which means dry. Olorosos also come as sweet wines, but this should be dry, even though it has six grams of residual sugar. Lustrau is definitely one of the most exciting producers in the region. They are actually fairly large, but they are also really into quality. So they're making some really interesting sherries, very expressive, very complete and complex wines. It's not one of the oldest estates. They really only started to grow in the 20th century. In the middle of the 20th century. But now they are one of the most highly regarded ones. So the big difference between an Oloroso and a Fino is that Olorosos are not aged under floor. They are aged oxidatively. So they tend to be brown in color with a little hint of red and green notes as well, even though this is also based on Palomino Fino, on a white grape variety. If you don't like the briny, yeasty flavors of Fino sherry, you should try Oloroso instead. This has more nutty notes, walnuts, roasted almonds. There's also some raisiny character, prunes coming through. So it's completely different to Fino. On the palate, it is quite a bit richer and more concentrated. It has 20% of alcohol. It also has this umaminess, which reminds me more of soy sauce and meat. It's quite delicious. They actually recommend serving this with oxtail, and I think this could be quite a beautiful match. I like to drink all of my sherries chilled. This I would drink at 14 degrees Celsius and a Fino at 8 degrees Celsius, more or less. So it's not an exact science, but they should be slightly cooled to just enhance the freshness and reduce the aromatic impact of the alcohol. This is good. I'm going to rate it 90 points. Great stuff. I believe many people think that sherry has to be sweet, but that's not the case. All of the wines I've tasted so far are dry, bone dry, most of them, and they're absolutely delicious, but they're also sweet sherries. In my opinion, the dry ones are more exciting. I really prefer them in general, but there are also sweet ones like this one. So this is the Fernando de Castilla Classic Sweet Cream, and it is a blend of Palomino Fino and Pietro Giminez. Cream Sherry is based on Oloroso, so an oxidatively aged wine that is dry, but then you add sweetener to it. In this case, Pietro Giminez dried raisin, Pietro Giminez grapes that are fermented into a very sweet syrupy wine is blended into the Oloroso, and then you get like a Swedish Oloroso style. So let's see, maybe this one is going to change my impression of sweet sherries. So this is pretty brown, it looks quite a bit like coffee. You can see through it, it doesn't really have those amber reflexes anymore, it's brown. It actually has quite a lot of nuttiness that you would get from an Oloroso, but there's also this dried fruit character, raisins, pruney flavors coming through. I'm guessing that's from the Pietro Giminez. On the palate, this is quite sweet, so there's lots of sweetness there. The problem with sherry and sweetness, in my opinion, is also that it doesn't have a lot of acidity. So if the wine gets sweet, it is heavy, oftentimes, because there's no acidity to liven it up, to refresh the palate, and this is well made. I think it's quite nice. I think probably quite a lot of people will like this and prefer this to many of the other ones that I've tasted before, but I just find it a little bit, yeah, could be a little bit more exciting. That said, if you like this style, then this is, I think, a pretty good example. I'm going to rate it 86 points. This is nice. I would drink it. I would drink a glass of it and wouldn't complain at all. So last but not least, we have the Sweet Beast Pietro Giminez. I've tasted Pietro Giminez quite a few times in my life, and it's always a struggle to finish even one glass. The wines are so sweet. They are syrup, basically, and I don't drink syrup normally. This is the Guterres Colosia Pietro Giminez. The Pietro Giminez grapes for this wine are sun-dried, so they shrivel in the sun, and then they are fermented. Fermentation gets stopped early through the addition of alcohol, so the wine is fortified. And then you have an extremely sweet wine with 17% of alcohol. Let's taste this. So this is bottled under a screw cap, which is a bit weird. In Spain, you usually don't get screw caps. The Spanish are quite particular with that, so suspicious. I think you can already see by the way the wine moves in the glass that it's super concentrated and very sweet. It is really viscous. That's the word. It smells of dried fruit and nuts. In Germany, we call it Studentenfutter. It's a mix of nuts and raisins and so on. And that's what this smells like. There's definitely quite a lot of raisiny character, figs, prunes, and yeah, toasted almonds, a little bit of walnut character coming through. It's actually quite appealing. I mean, it's, yeah, it's sweet stuff and nutty stuff. Who doesn't like that? Yeah, but on the palate, I mean, it's, it's sweet. It's so sweet. I learned that this is the wine of choice for weddings. So Pedro Ximénez is always served at the end of a wedding dinner. And I guess why not? But, but yeah, it's just, I mean, this is a dessert in and of itself and not one of those sophisticated ones. It's like eating Snickers bars, you know, it's sweet. If you have a sweet tooth, you're really into sweet stuff, and you don't mind not having any acidity in a wine, then this is your wine, you know, enjoy it, drink it, it just doesn't work for me. I'm going to rate this 85 points. I actually think it's also not a great Pedro Ximénez. It's a good one, but, but not, not really outstanding. And yeah, that's, that's enough Pedro Ximénez for me for this year, I think. So this was a fun tasting, at least for me, I really enjoy drinking those wines. It's quite difficult to fit in all of the information on sherry into one video, but at least I tried. I might have to do another one. My favorite wines in the tasting were this one, the Barbadillo Amontillado, and well, I actually liked those three also quite a bit. I would probably start with this and then move on to this and then drink these. The sweet ones, they are not for me. If you like sweet stuff, try them, but I, yeah, I'm not really getting excited about these wines. So thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please like it down here, subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so already. The question of the day is, do you like sherry? Let me know down below in the comments. I hope I see you guys again very soon. Until then, I'm not going to drink more Pedro Ximenez, but some of those and you stay thirsty.