[Spanish Guitar Music Playing]
While Andalucía is known for its olive oil and ibérico ham,
it also produces sherry, a fortified wine made near the town of Jerez.
Sherry has a protected designation of origin;
and all wine labeled as "Sherry" must come from the Sherry Triangle,
an area between Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María.
[César Saldaña speaking] Sherry has been traditionally regarded as a good very good operative wine or
a dessert wine, if we talk about the sweet styles of sherry,
but we are convinced — and this is the way we treat sherry, here at home —
that this is a great wine to accompany food.
And this is, as I said, this is where we enjoy sherry [....]
So, what we're doing is trying to pass the message that sherry....
Because of the enormous variety of styles
and the versatility, and the power, and that capacity that the sherry has to
enhance the taste — the flavors of food.... is a great companion for it.
So, every second year, we have a competition here....
which would join restaurants, chefs, and sommeliers from
seven different countries. In each of those countries, we also run this national competition.
Basically the whole idea behind tapas is going from one flavor to the other,
going from a langostino down to some chorizo, some Manchego Cheese, some Iberian ham....
When we drink Fino with it what we're doing we're cleaning our palate integrity,
and so you appreciate every step in your tapas menu,
thoroughly without mixing flavors in your palate.
[Narrator] Cesar Saldaña, director general of the regulatory board that governs all sherry production,
explains the unique way that sherry is produced.
[Cesar Saldaña] Sherry is basically the result of a long history, a long tradition.
We've been making wines for 3,000 years,
and it's also the result of very precise natural conditions.
It all starts with a very particular soil that we call the Albariza,
which is capable to absorb the rainfall that we're getting in just a few days here in the year,
and three white grape varieties.
Palomino grape variety is the most important one,
and then we have two other grape varieties Pedro Ximenez and Moscatel, that we use for the sweet styles of sherry.
At the beginning, what we do is making a white wine....
There is a very special, natural phenomenon in this area....
The white wines will develop a kind of cream on the surface, a kind of a layer of yeasts,
which is what we call Flor.
And that Flor will confer very special organoleptic characteristics to that wine.
It'll be the decision of the winemaker either to keep the Flor,
or getting — taking the Flor out,
to open the possibilities of different sherry styles.
If we manage to keep the Flor,
we will have what we call the Finos and the Manzanillas.
These are extremely light wines, very pale in color, very [...]
beautiful aperitif wines, beautiful also for the seafood, very refreshing but very dry.
If we increase the alcoholic strength of the wine
and therefore we get rid of the Flor,
the wine looses that layer that is protecting it from direct contact with the oxygen,
and it gets much darker in color, kind of amber colored, mahogany color
if very aged....
This is how we produce what we call the Amontillados and the Olorosos,
which are these are much stronger deeper wines,
with very deep aromas....
which would/will gain a very prominent role.
[Eduardo Ojeda] The old wines — Amontillados and Olorosos, are concentrated wines.
Most of the time....
very old wines small quantities, and to be consumed in small quantities.
and not on the same sit.
You can keep a bottle a few weeks,
including one year to consume because the wine remain in good condition
[Narrator] Sherry can be divided roughly into three different styles.
First there are the pale, dry finos and manzanillas.
These are the wines most Andalucians will enjoy with their tapas
and they are excellent with simple straightforward dishes of olives or almonds,
iberico or serrano hams, or well-aged cheeses.
Then there are the more intense flavors that come with darker hued,
and darker flavored, Amontillados and Olorosos,
and are considered optimum with meats,
especially wild game and grilled red meats.
Finally there are the sweet sherries,
made by blending sweet Pedro Ximénez with the Oloroso
to create cream sherries that are terrific with soft, ripe cheeses,
especially blue cheeses, and of course with foie gras.
[César Saldaña speaking] All the different styles of sherry that we produce, either the very fine pungent Finos
or the very bold, very structured Olorosos,
they are also aged through a very, very special type of aging process
that we call the Solera Method.
The Solera is basically a system in which we are taking the wine to different scales of maturation,
blending the wines with the other vintages,
with wines with different degrees of maturation,
to have a consistent quality at the end of the process.
Maybe after 5, 10, 15 years, it depends on the type of sherry.
This is how we produce the *Dry* Sherries....
But then those Dry Sherries can also be blended with the sweet wines
that we produce out of the Pedro Ximénez and the Moscatel grape varieties.
So, when we speak about the Solera System, we're talking about different scales of maturation in the aging of our wines.
Here, in the lower row of casks is where we have the older wines....
This row we call them [....] Solera
and this is coming from the word "suelo," meaning "floor."
Right? So, this is where the wines that have material for longer, are always kept.
Here we have, what we call, the First Criadera,
and the Second Criadera. We can have different scales of maturation, all right?
Now, when we need to bottle some sherry,
we will always take that wine from the lower casks,
so from those casks in the Solera.
And we only take a small fraction out of the — out of each barrel,
the same quantity from each of the barrels in the Solera Room. Right?
This is what we bottle. Of course, we have to filter and that we bottle it.
So, now the quantity that we have taken out from each of the barrels in the Solera
will be replaced by this wine which is a little younger, right?
They give the one in the First Criadera casks, right?
So, we transfer that same quantity into the next scale of maturation.
We continue doing the same from the Second Criadera into the first,
and we can have as many Criaderas as you wish, I mean....
There are some systems here in Jerez with maybe 12, 15 Criaderas....
Obviously, we don't place them one on top of the other, we have them in different places....
But the important thing is that we have always those scales of maturation, perfectly identified,
and that the young wines will continue always the same path.
Because this is the youngest, of all the Criaderas,
that we will give entrance to the wines from the last harvest.
The young wine will enter the youngest Criadera,
will be blended already with wines that have been sitting there for years,
then that blend will be re-blended in the next stage
and then re-blended until they reach the cellar casks.
[Narrator] One sherry wine that’s gained a lot of attention among chefs and sommeliers recently....
is Manzanilla — a type of pale, dry fino sherry
that is only made in the small town of Sanlucar de Barameda,
at the edge of the sea where the great Guadalquivir River empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
[Timothy Holt] Now the way Manzanilla is made, its....
We get the young wine from Palomino grape in our vineyards,
that's pressed. We get the free-run juice,
and we only use free-run juice for Manzanilla...
and that young wine is totally dry.
There's — the fermentation is complete.
When I discovered Manzanilla, which was many years ago,
I discovered it in its right context when I came here to to Spain.
And above all, to Andalucía.
The tapas culture is very much an Andalucían eating concept...
Um....
And the quintessential tapas wine has always been Manzanilla.
[César Saldaña speaking] Sherry is a great wine for food because, as I said, it....
When you drink — when you sip a little bit of Manzanilla or Fino, I mean, your taste buds are alerted immediately.
Sherry is a great taste enhancer.
Because in every sip, you're getting your palate excited.
So, you appreciate every step in your tapas menu thoroughly,
without mixing flavors in your palate.
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