Know your étiquette! Manzanilla sherry
After our high-speed chase through the streets of Jerez de la Frontera, it’s time to chill by the coast to visit Fino’s dry-sherry sibling: Manzanilla.
This lightly fortified, ultra-refreshing wine has a lot in common with Fino. Both are “biologically aged” - by which we mean they mature under a veil of flor that protects them from evolving oxidatively. The difference is that the maturation process for Manzanilla takes place exclusively in the town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
Once again, Valdespino is the model - this time its Deliciosa bottling - and once again this is a wine intended for drinking upon release. A versatile aperitif and food wine, it’s mercifully easy to find in Australia, and very well priced.
Know your étiquette: Fino sherry
¡Viva España and it’s truly unique vino! We’re off to Andalucía and the vineyards of Jerez today to look at Fino.
Buckle up because it’s a pretty fast ride. Sorry about that - there’s just so much that’s unusual about crafting dry #sherry that it’s hard to cut a long story short. I’ll do a less breathless follow-up on Fino’s sibling Manzanilla soon that should help some of this info stick.
But for now I’d leave you in the capable hand’s of Valdespino, a member of the prestigious Grandes Pagos de España family of winegrowers seeking to highlight the singularity of Spain’s scattered gems.