Santa and Sherry
Santa Claus is coming to town. Those of us who have been nice get presents, but not those of us that have been naughty. But if you have been naughty, don’t despair. There is a sure fire way to get Santa dropping down your chimney this Christmas. Santa is a sucker for sherry. He’ll eat the cookies too, but it’s the sherry that will tempt him to drop you off the naughty list. So here’s what you need to know.
Sherry’s home is Jerez, which is how it gets its name. Jerez is a region in Spain famous for producing fortified white wine. Technically Australian versions aren’t allowed to be called sherry anymore and will just be named for one of the three styles a, “fortified white wine,” is made in. For my own ease I’m going to refer to these wines in this article as, “sherry style,” wines.
Real sherry from Jerez is allowed to be made from three varieties; Palomino, Pedro Ximénez, and Muscat of Alexandria. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of these, the only place you’re likely to encounter the first two is in a sherry style wine. Muscat of Alexandria, on the other hand, you may know by one of its other names, “Moscato,” or, “Frontignac.” Australian sherry style wines often incorporate Verdelho, a Portuguese variety.
Sherry is made using a solera. A solera is a system of wine barrels stacked in rows on top of one another. The grapes are processed into a dry white wine, fortified by adding spirit, to take the alcohol content up to about 16%, and put into the top row of barrels. The barrels are only filled to about two thirds of their capacity. The air in the barrel allows the wine to oxidize. Each year some wine from this top row is drawn off and added to the row beneath (and of course, new wine is added to the top row). The second row down has some wine drawn off and added to the third row and so on until the wine drawn off the bottom row of the solera (which gets a bit more spirit added) is the final blend that is bottled and sold.
The three styles of sherry are:
Fino Sherry – Yeast called, “flor,” is allowed to grow on the surface of the wine within the barrel, adding a nutty character. This style is dry.
Amontillado Sherry – This style is made in the same way as a fino but before bottling is allowed extra maturation without the flor growth. Often they are slightly sweetened.
Oloroso Sherry – This style is aged in a solera without any flor growth. It is then sweetened (more than amontillado) before bottling.
Unfortunately a few years back the other member of the Santa entourage that enjoys sherry, Rudolph, went a little heavy on the fino. It was the early hours of the morning and Rudolph’s nose was glowing particularly brightly. So brightly in fact that once he’d fallen asleep the other members of the team could all SEE that they were off course. They could all SEE the mountainside approaching. But no one could stop Rudolph guiding the sleigh that night into a tragic accident.