The Wine Camp Blog

IT'S WHITE outside and black inside.

In fact it's blinding white outside. The houses are all white, the ground is white, and the sun is a searing white light. It's already white hot and it's still early in the morning.

When you first walk inside everything looks black. After the scorching white of the outdoors your eyes see almost nothing as they struggle to adjust to the change. You can't see yet, but you can feel the suddenly cool air and a lush, rich, sweet aroma reminiscent of caramel mixed with the musty smells of an old cellar.

Gradually your eyes adjust to the light and you can start to discern the contents of the room. Everywhere there are barrels. The room is full top to bottom with old, blackened barrels. Even as your vision returns, everything seems in shadows. The large room has the feeling, smells, and hushed tones of an ancient church.

The harsh heat of the day does not penetrate here. Without a touch of air-conditioning or the breeze of a fan the expansive room is cool and damp even though it is above ground.

This is a wine bodega on the coast of southwestern Spain. The barrels are full -- well, three-quarters full -- of the world's greatest wine bargain: Sherry.

The wines from the Jerez region are delicious, complex, and unique, but there's a crisis in Sherry. The wines aren't selling and prices are depressed. Sales in northern Europe and the critical British market are falling. There, Sherry is seen as old fashioned. In the United States, it is mostly ignored. That is, except for the top end of the Sherry market where sales show some promise.

Robert Parker raves and The Wine Spectator spouts their praises. Great stores put in serious selections, wine geeks debate, but consumers yawn. Even great restaurants only give token attention to the exceptional wines of Sherry. Why if they are so good do so few care?

The reason is simple: Sherry does not fit neatly into a slot, a niche, a convenient category. In the United States folks head straight to the oak chip chardonnay for their aperitif and in England the hip young buyers are looking to New Zealand and Australia -- not that old stuff that their aunties sipped.

Before you protest about how great Sherry is and how much you love it, take a look in your recycling bin. How many bottles of Sherry have you consumed lately?

Sherry suffers from a confusing range of styles, the self-propagated myth that the production is some unknown magical process, and some of the worst marketing decisions ever.

Let's first simplify the Sherry itself. There are basically three categories of Sherry and all those dozens of names you see are a variation of, or a blend of, those three types of wines. They are all aged in 550-liter used-oak casks, fortified with grape brandy, and put through the Solera ageing process, which we will discuss later. The three foundations of Sherry are:

Type 1

Fino: This is a very dry light wine produced from the Palomino grape, as are all the finest Sherry wines. In the case of Fino a thick layer of yeast, called Flor, forms on the top of the wine and greatly reduces the amount of contact the wine has with oxygen. This covering of yeast looks like the head on a good glass of lager beer and can be five or six inches thick. Fino is known by the producers as a biological wine because its flavors come from the contact with the yeast and the reduced contact with air. Fino wines are bone-dry, light, fresh, and delicate and are served well-chilled. Fino should be consumed within one year (less is better) of bottling; once opened the bottle should be finished as quickly as possible. When you see an open bottle of unchilled Fino on the back of the bar, run away as fast as you can.

Manzanilla and Puerto Fino: They are the same type of wine as Fino, but produced in different towns. Wines produced in the cooler coastal cities of Sanlucar de Barrameda (Manzanilla) and Puerto de Santa Maria (Puerto Fino) are more delicate than the Fino wines produced in the more inland Jerez de la Frontera. These three towns create the famous "Sherry Triangle" and only wines from these three areas can use the name Sherry. The wines from the coast are more delicate because the cooler climate keeps a more even protective coating of Flor over the wine throughout the year. In warmer Jerez, the Flor will get thinner during the summer and give the wine a more oxidized (nutty) flavor while the costal wines retain more fruit flavors.

Fino wines should be served like regular white wine. It really ticks me off to get a glass of Fino served in those tiny liqueur glasses. In lieu of proper Sherry glasses I prefer Champagne flutes. How would you feel if you ordered a glass of chardonnay and they gave you a two ounce pour in the same glasses they use for the Jaegermeister shots? This is exactly what restaurants do with Fino sherry. No wonder no one orders it. It's also a ripoff because a good bottle of Fino costs the restaurant less than that bland chardonnay they're pouring 6 ounces of for the same price. Fino sherry is an aperitif and a dinner wine that needs to be served in decent glasses just like any other serious wine. The best Fino Sherry runs about 15.5% alcohol, just a bit more than many chardonnays and about the same as your favorite zin. Watch out for Fino wines with higher alcohol content than 15.5% because they are super-fortified for travel and taste like boiled almonds mixed with a bit of grain alcohol. Fino should be very light in color; beware of overly brown Fino.

Fino is a food-matching superstar able to resolve almost all conflicts. In Jerez, the tapas bounce from fish to vegetables to eggs to spicy sausages and back again in no particular order, and the wine handles the transitions with ease. I can think of no better choice for pan-Asian cuisine, or any restaurant where the diners can have wildly varying foods during the same course. I would not hesitate to serve it throughout such meals. When it comes to deep fried foods, the zesty freshness of Fino Sherry is the ultimate partner. Fino Sherry is also the only wine that really tastes good with sushi. While Fino is more than an aperitif, it may be the most elegant way to prepare your palate for a serious meal. The La Gitana Manzanilla from Hildago competes for the "best aperitif on the planet" award.

Amontillado is simply old Fino. That is, Fino left to age after the protective covering of Flor has died off thus developing an oxidized character. Real Amontillado is absolutely dry and should be served at cool room temperature. By cool room temperature I mean an unheated castle in the English countryside in December. The wine should taste cool, but not chilled. Amontillado is much richer in color, body, and alcohol and is more of a sipping wine than Fino, which can be a gulping wine in the right situation. Amontillado is a wonderful cool-weather aperitif and goes surprisingly well with braised game dishes, particularly when some of the wine is used in the cooking.

Type 2

Oloroso: Easily the least known and potentially the most profound of the wines of Sherry. These are considered oxidative wines (as compared to the biological Finos) by the producers. After fermentation these wines go into the same type of casks as wines destined to become Fino. However, in this case little or none of the coating of Flor develops, so the wines in the partially filled barrels are exposed to oxygen. They are big, rich, brown wines with significant alcohol levels. To the surprise of many they are absolutely, bone-jarringly dry. As hard as the Sherry producers argue that these wines can be great with meals, I just can't agree. The best Oloroso wines are so complex and powerful, in excess of 20% alcohol, that for me they can only be meditation wines. Some nuts, a little smelly cheese, a fireplace, and a good book and you are in Sherry heaven. Avoid cheap Oloroso as it is a waste of time, especially considering that you can buy unforgettable wines for under $30 (US). Unlike Fino, Oloroso comes pre-oxidized so you can enjoy the bottle for several weeks after opening. Cigar lovers will find the equal of their finest Cubans in wines like the Lustau Emperatriz Eugenia Very Rare Oloroso. If you have not experienced these wines you are missing one of the unique experiences that wine can offer and you will die having lived an unfulfilled life.

Just to confuse, another type gets thrown in here: Palo Cortado is a wine that couldn't make up its mind. It started growing Flor like a Fino, but after a while the Flor disappeared and it aged like an Oloroso. The style is in between Amontillado and Oloroso in style. Some of the finest wines of Sherry fall into this category. Both Palo Cortado and Oloroso should be served at cool room temperature.

Type 3

Sweet Sherry and Sweet Wines from Sherry: Here is where the real confusion starts. Most people think Sherry is sweet -- and with good reason. The success of the Cream Sherry category (thanks Harvey's Bristol Cream) and a sweet Amontillado (ever heard of Dry Sack?) has distorted the public's perception of all Sherry wines. Let's try to keep it simple.

Cream Sherry is the bone-dry Oloroso described above, blended with ultra-sweet blending wines discussed below. If you use great Oloroso and blend it with great sweet wines (below), Cream Sherry can be a wonderful thing. If you blend crap Oloroso with crap sweet wine you get crap. If you want the ultimate dessert wine with Bananas Foster or anything else with caramelized sugar you need look no farther than the top Cream Sherry wines. This is a slam-dunk wine match.

The great sweet wines of the Sherry region are the varietal wines Moscatel and Pedro Ximenez . Both are made by harvesting late ultra-ripe grapes and then concentrating them further by sun-drying them. These are wines of incredible sweetness and thickness. They are dark brown and so sweet that they can sauce a dessert straight out of the bottle. They will blow your mind on vanilla ice cream. A single bottle can last forever. The wines from the Pedro Ximenez are used to blend with Oloroso to create Cream Sherry.

So there are your three types, all unified by one wine making process: the Solera system. The technical, non-romantic name is fractional blending, which means wines of various years blended with each other in a continuous process to create a consistent character. For an excellent description of the arduous process visit the Emilio Lustau Web site.

In Jerez they call the rows of barrels that make up the Solera the "criaderas," or scales (like in music). The new wines go into the barrels on the top and the wines for sale come out of the barrels on the bottom. When you take wine from the bottom barrels to bottle you replace it with some wine from the middle barrels that are in turn refilled from the top barrels. The barrels are never emptied and only about 15% is taken at one time from a serious solera. So you end up at the bottom with bits of very old wine blended with bits of very young wines and lots of bits of wines in between. The blending process produces wines of exceptionally consistency and depth. Some soleras have been in continuous use for 75 years or more for Oloroso wines. The Hildago Cortado Solera is over 200 years old -- older than the firm itself. The bottom of each barrel is crusted with centuries of sediment that they call "La Madre" and to which they attribute the complexity of this great wine.

Navigating Sherry

Hint: For a first lesson in Sherry seek out the wines of Emilio Lustau. Lustau produces top examples of each category of Sherry and works hard to see these wines arrive in top condition in each market. Unlike mass market Fino wines like Tio Pepe and La Ina, Lustau limits importer orders to insure freshness and only bottles the wines when ordered, instead of projecting sales and stacking the boxes up in the warehouse. Here's a rundown of some major brands:

Hildago: La Gitana is certainly the finest Manzanilla produced in any quantity. Importer Classical Wines of Spain is obsessed with keeping fresh wine in the market -- an obsession for which we should all be thankful. La Gitana is racy and complex and is probably the closest thing to the Fino style wines you drink in Spain. The whole range is excellent and the cooler Sanlucar climate is reflected in the elegance and balance of all the firm's wines. The Pastrana Single Vineyard selections and the "Very Rare" range are exceptional and should be sought out.

Lustau: While everything in Lustau's line is of the highest quality, I do have some favorites. The Puerto Fino is a perfect example of this type. It combines the richness of Jerez with the finesse of Manzanilla. The Fino Jarana continues to be my preferred Fino year in and year out. The Rare Amontillado Escuadilla shows amazing depth and complexity. The Rare Cream is easily the best example of this type. Knowledge of Sherry cannot be complete without exploring Lustau's Almacenista range. Wines of all the Sherry categories are offered from soleras held by small producers who nurse these wines to perfection in small bodegas. These are unique wines whose personalities speak with as much passion as the greatest small estates in Burgundy or Barolo.

Gonzalez Byass: The famous Tio Pepe used to be a terrible over-fortified Fino, but these days the alcohol has been dropped to 15.5% and Tio Pepe is now a pleasant wine. Often this is the only Fino you can find. This is a giant brand and the wines can often sit in distributors' warehouses for too long, so beware of freshness. The Soleras Exlusivas and the Oloroso Solera 1847 are exceptional wines. Most of the range is well made and correct if sometimes uninspired.

Other well-made wines include the Osborne Rare Old Soleras and the Sandeman "Royal" line (but I am not a fan of their regular offerings). Valdespino also makes interesting wines across the entire range. The wines from Domecq leave me cold, including the ever present La Ina.

I prefer my Fino cold.