ANDALUSIA

History

The ancient lands of southwestern Spain have been planted with vineyards for nearly 3,000 years, but winemaking was discouraged if not outright forbidden here from 711 to 1492. The reason for this was because this particular part of Iberia was under the control of the Moors and Islam for a long period of time.

Territory

Very hot and arid, rugged and harsh… at least to most visitors, Andalucía seems more like the surface of the moon than a landscape, and it mirrors the stereotypical idea many Americans have of Spain in general. But Andalucía’s mountains offer up many surprises. The abrupt shifts in elevation create a unique terroir; great dessert wines have been produced with the grapes of the Montilla-Moriles and Málaga areas. Jerez, Andalucía’s most famous wine area, receives more rainfall than most other parts of southern Spain. That rain is captured by the special limestone-rich soils of the area; named albariza, these soils bake in the heat of summer sun and transform into a hard crust, trapping cool moisture for all the vines’ needs.

Wines

Sherry can be bewildering for many people. It’s actually simple: Sherry is a fortified wine. The fortification process happens after the fermentation, so all Sherry begins its life as a dry wine, which is different from Port. Have you heard of the terms fino and oloroso? Sherry is initially classified as one of these two wines. The fino Sherry is intended to be a light and crisp, even at 15% alcohol, yet the great fino Sherry’s are delicate. They are aged in barrel underneath a yeast film called flor, and the flor protects the wine from oxygen, adding flavors and aromas to the liquid. Great fino Sherry’s take on the tangy aromas of the flor, with its distinct almond character and aromas that can be likened to mushrooms and sometimes cheese rind. The fino Sherry aged in the bodegas of the coastal town Sanlúcar de Barrameda take on the ocean’s aromas and are called: manzanilla. Fino Sherry’s that lose their flor are fortified to a higher level of alcohol (around 18%), and allowed to age into something called amontillado. Amontillado Sherry contains the echoes of the fino character, but it develops further taking on notes of pecans, honey, caramel, toffee, nuts, dried fruits, and many other aromas and oxidative flavors. The other great and well-known category of Sherry is oloroso. These are usually made sweet, although, a handful of them are left dry. The term can be loosely translated as “powerfully aromatic”, and the long barrel aging required for great oloroso certainly allows its aromas to develop. Oloroso flavors include toffee, walnuts, prunes, cherries, orange rind, spices, chocolate, and a myriad other delectable, dessert-like aromas. Sherry is also defined by its solera process of aging. Solera is a system of fractional blending, this is a technique that blends younger and older wines together continually as they age, ensuring a consistent style of mature wine. Sherries can be designated as Twelve Year Old, Fifteen Year Old, VOS or VORS, and are Carbon -14 tested to verify their minimum average age. We know of no other similarly rigorous testing in other wine regions of the world.