Wine Word of the Week: Sherry



By Kori ~ February 8th, 2011.

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is sherry.

Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine:
Sherry is a seriously undervalued but slowly reawakening fortified wine from the region around the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalucia, south west Spain. ‘Sherry’ was used as a generic term for a wide range of fortified wines made from white grapes, but in the mid 1990s the sherry trade successfully campaigned to have the name restricted—at least within the European Union—to the produce of the Jerez DO. …. Only three varieties are now authorized for new vineyards in Jerez: Palomino, Pedro Ximenez, and Muscat of Alexandria. Of these, Palomino is the most important and accounts for around 95 percent of the total vineyard area.

Layman’s terms from Kori:
Sherry is a fortified white wine, made primarily from the Palomino grape, which is produced according to a complex aging and fractional blending process.


Filed under: Wine Word of the Week

Reader's Comments

  1. Steve | February 8th, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    San Diego State University has an outstanding Business of Wine professional certificate program. The next class starts Feb. 15 and is taught by advanced sommelier Lisa Redwine (yes, that’s her real name:)
    http://lajolla.patch.com/articles/with-a-name-like-redwine-she-has-to-be-good

  2. Guglielmo Rocchiccioli | February 21st, 2011 at 1:21 am

    I would like to share the tasting notes of this Manzanilla.

    MANZANILLA MUY FINA – MANZANILLA DENOMINACIÓN DE ORIGEN – PRODUCIDO Y EMBOTELLADO POR BODEGAS BARBADILLO, S.L. – C/LUIS DE EGUILAZ 11 – SANLÚCAR DE BARRAMEDA E-11540. ESPAÑA 15%

    Manzanilla fina criada bajo velo de flor, en nuestras Bodegas en la ciudad de Sanlúcar de Barrameda, por el peculiar métdo de clases. Seis generaciones de la familia BARBADILLO avalan la calidad de este producto.

    VISUAL ANALYSIS: straw yellow as the sun of an advanced autumn.
    OLFACTORY ANALYSIS: orange peel, nuts, hazelnuts, dried cherry, toasted smells, dried yellow plum and candied banana.
    GUSTATIVE ANALYSIS: it reaches the palate very well but later there is a degustative hole and at the end the alcoholic note is still burning your oesopahgus; the acidity leves is hot so high and the glyceric content is good.
    WINE-FOOD COMBINATION: biscuits with white chocolate
    PERSONAL OPINION: a sweet wine at the nose and dry at the mouth; the olfactory exam is complex and at the mouth, it is interesting. The relaxed and simple rhythm of this wine is based on the single principles of an oenological process that is honest and good as usual in this part of Spain.