Winemaking has gotten complicated with all the techniques and equipment flying around. As someone with extensive winemaking experience, I learned everything there is to know about crafting wine. Today, I will share it all with you.
Dry Sherry: The Most Underrated Wine You Are Not Drinking
I am going to make a bold claim: dry sherry is the most undervalued wine in the world. And I am constantly baffled that more people do not drink it.
When I mention sherry to most people, they picture the dusty bottle of cream sherry their grandmother kept in the cupboard. That sweet, syrupy stuff that tastes like it has been open since 1987. I get it. That was my association too.
Then I spent a week in Jerez, Spain, tasting fino and manzanilla straight from the barrel. And I realized I had been completely wrong about this entire category of wine.
What Makes Sherry Different
Sherry comes from a tiny region in southwestern Spain – the Sherry Triangle formed by Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlucar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa Maria. That is it. Anything else calling itself sherry is not sherry.
The main grape is Palomino – a variety that would make utterly boring table wine. But in this specific place, with the chalky albariza soil and the unique production methods, it becomes something extraordinary.
Here is what happens: After fermentation, the wine is fortified with grape spirit and put into barrels that are not quite full. In most wine regions, this would be disaster – oxidation, spoilage, vinegar. But in Jerez, something magical occurs. A layer of yeast called flor develops on the wine surface, protecting it from oxygen and feeding on alcohol and nutrients in the wine.
This flor changes everything. It gives the wine a distinctive tangy, almost yeasty character. It keeps the wine fresh despite years in barrel. And it creates styles of wine you cannot get anywhere else on earth.
The Dry Sherry Styles
Fino: Pale, bone dry, sharp as a knife. Aged entirely under flor. Flavors of almonds, bread dough, salt, and chamomile. This is the most refreshing wine I know. A cold glass of fino on a hot day is better than any beer. I will die on this hill.
Manzanilla: Essentially fino, but made in Sanlucar de Barrameda on the coast. The seaside aging gives it an extra salty, briny character that I find addictive. Even paler and lighter than fino. Perfect with seafood – not just acceptable with seafood, but actively perfect.
Amontillado: Starts life as fino under flor, then the flor dies (either naturally or because the winemaker fortified higher). Now the wine ages oxidatively, developing deeper amber color and nutty, caramelized flavors while keeping that initial tangy character. Dry, complex, endlessly interesting. My go-to wine with roasted nuts or aged cheese.
Oloroso: Never had flor. Aged oxidatively from the start. Darker, richer, with notes of walnut, espresso, dried fruit. Still dry (though there are sweetened versions). Full-bodied and warming. I drink these in winter with hearty stews.
Palo Cortado: The unicorn. Starts like fino, then something happens – the flor disappears earlier than expected. Has the oxidative richness of oloroso with the elegance of amontillado. Rare and worth seeking out.
The Solera System Explained Simply
Every sherry is aged using the solera system, which I find endlessly fascinating.
Picture a pyramid of barrels. The oldest wine is at the bottom. When you bottle wine, you take from the bottom barrels – but never more than about a third. Then you refill those barrels from the level above. And refill those from above them. And so on. New wine enters at the top.
The result? Every bottle contains a fraction of wine that might be decades old. The old wine trains the new wine. The blend averages out vintage variation. And sherry houses can maintain consistent style across generations.
Some soleras have been running for over a century. When you drink a good fino, you are literally tasting wine that has lineage going back to when your great-grandparents were young.
Why Most People Think They Hate Sherry
Because most sherry people encounter is either:
Old: Fino and manzanilla are fragile wines. Once opened, they last maybe a week in the fridge. But people treat them like spirits and keep them on the shelf for months. Oxidized fino tastes like wet cardboard. No wonder people are not impressed.
Cheap cream sherry: The commercial sweet sherries sold in supermarkets are not representative of what sherry can be. They are the box wine of the sherry world.
Warm: Fino and manzanilla should be served cold – like white wine, not room temperature. Warm sherry tastes flabby and dull.
I am convinced that 80 percent of people who say they hate sherry have only experienced it wrong. Fix the storage, temperature, and freshness, and suddenly you have a completely different wine.
Pairings That Actually Work
Sherry with tapas is obvious – that is the traditional pairing. But let me share some specific combinations I love:
Fino with olives and Marcona almonds: The saltiness plays off the nutty wine. Classic for a reason.
Manzanilla with oysters: Better than champagne. Fight me. The brininess matches perfectly.
Amontillado with mushrooms: Whether risotto, sauteed, or soup. The earthy nuttiness is extraordinary.
Oloroso with hard cheese: Aged manchego, parmigiano, aged gouda. The richness of both complement each other.
Palo cortado with aged beef: Sounds weird, works brilliantly. The wine has enough body to stand up to the meat.
Serving and Storage
Fino and Manzanilla: Keep refrigerated. Serve very cold in small glasses. Drink within a week of opening, maybe two. Buy half bottles if you are not going through it fast.
Amontillado and Oloroso: More forgiving. Cellar temperature is fine for storage, serve slightly cool. Will last a few weeks after opening.
All sherry: Buy from shops with good turnover. Sherry sitting on a dusty shelf for two years is not going to be good, no matter what style it is.
Why I Love This Wine
Sherry represents something rare in the wine world – a style that cannot be replicated anywhere else. You can make Pinot Noir in Oregon or New Zealand or Germany. You can make sparkling wine in California or England. But you cannot make real sherry outside of a few towns in Spain.
It is also ridiculously underpriced. Twenty dollars gets you a bottle that would cost 80 if it came from a trendy region. The value is absurd.
And honestly? I just love the way it tastes. The tang of a good fino, the complexity of amontillado, the richness of oloroso – these are unique flavors that nothing else offers. In a wine world obsessed with chasing the next big thing, sherry has been quietly excellent for centuries.
If you have never had good dry sherry, you owe it to yourself to try. Get a bottle of fino or manzanilla from a reputable producer, serve it cold, and drink it with some olives. If that does not click for you, fair enough. But I suspect it will.
