Sherry is a fantastic dry wine, a great apéritif and a beautiful foil for many types of food. It is blended to various stages of sweetness, but retains a power and pungency that is unique and in Spain it has been for years regarded as one of the highest expressions of quality you can find.

All true sherries, mainly made from the grape variety Palomino Fino, start as juice that is completely fermented out to make dry white wines. These wines are then put in barrel where some, the more lightly fortified, will develop a creamy yeast called ‘flor’. It is this flor which imparts an intense flavour to the wine while preserving it, in the barrel, from the effects of oxygen. It stops it going brown and keeps it fresh to the taste.

In Sanlúcar de Barrameda the flor grows permanently on the wine, meaning that Tanners Mariscal Manzanilla, the lightest, freshest style in our range, is bone-dry with a salty tang. For more intensity of flavour, the single vineyard Manzanilla Pasada spends longer in barrel, producing one of the most aromatic wines available. By contrast, the chillier winter in Jerez subdues the effectiveness of the flor, so that Tanners Fino has a bit more fatness to it, still with that lemony freshness however.

Finally, a small proportion of sweet sherries are produced from ageing the two naturally sweet Moscatel and Pedro Ximénez grapes, shrivelled and almost raisined when pressed to produce tiny quantities of juice, and the results are outstanding. Both Moscatel Goyesco from Delgado Zuleta, and Pedro Ximenez Viejo from Vinícola Hidalgo are wonderfully rich, powerful, dark wines packed with fruit that make fantastic pudding wines, gorgeous in the dark days of winter!

James Tanner