© Michael Boudot

L-R: Jesús Barquín; "Sherry, Manzanilla and Montilla"; Peter Liem

Authors Peter Liem and Jesús Barquín say sherry is struggling not just for recognition, but for "sheer survival."

Books on sherry have been as rare as sales of dry oloroso in recent years. For us weirdos who have had a long love affair with Spain’s great forgotten wines, Peter Liem and Jesús Barquín’s “Sherry, Manzanilla and Montilla” is as refreshing as a fino on a hot Andalucian day.

As well as providing an overview of the region’s history, the vast array of sherry styles and methods of production, the pair also profile the region’s producers. Proving that every day is a school day, there’s even a chapter on Montilla, which will satisfy even the biggest sherry know-all.

In this impassioned excerpt from the book, Liem and Barquín discuss the lack of focus on the region's vineyards.

"In the modern day, the average standard of quality in sherry is remarkably high. This is likely due in part to the solera system, which encourages a certain degree of consistency in the wines. Modern technology and advances in winemaking have also contributed to a better and more consistent product, even if they have also eliminated the possibility of unpredictable, unorthodox wines of high quality and extreme character.

Also beneficial to the region is the fact that quality wines are not concentrated in the hands of a select few, but rather can be found in the cellars of a wide variety of producers of all different sizes. The last couple of decades have seen the rise of smaller, boutique bodegas such as El Maestro Sierra and Tradición, which focus on a highly hand-crafted, artisanal style. At the same time, traditional houses such as Hidalgo-La Gitana and Valdespino have continued to elevate the quality of their wines. Even the giants of the region such as González Byass and Barbadillo are making top-class wines, and indeed some of the best in the entire appellation, proving that quantity and quality are not at all mutually exclusive in the world of sherry.

Not all of the developments of the last half-century have been positive, however ... Above all, the factor most detrimental to the quality and character of sherry today is the near complete abandonment of focus on the vineyards themselves. In the daily life of the sherry district, the primary and intuitive concept of terroir—a concept that prevails in every prestigious winemaking region—is diluted beyond recognition. Most sherry producers do not even own vineyards anymore, instead purchasing wines either from small almacenistas (who may or may not own vines themselves) or, more commonly, from one of the seven large cooperatives in the region.

These wines—and they are typically finished wines, not grapes—may be of adequate quality, yet they are often anonymous, blended from a wide variety of sources and ultimately severing any possible link that the winemaker might have with the vineyard.

© Manutius

L-R: The tasting room at Bodegas González Byass, Jerez; Javier Hidalgo of Bodegas Hidalgo La Gitana

The excuse for ignoring terroir, which has become so ingrained into the public consciousness that it is virtually accepted as gospel today, is that the base wines for sherry are intended to be neutral, and that it is the long aging in the solera system that creates the character of the final wine. Clearly, the solera system has a fundamental role to play, and its effects on the wine are significant. We have also spoken previously in this book about the terroir of the bodega—those factors in the aging environment that shape the character of a wine—and how this, too, has a profound impact.

Yet neutrality is not the goal of sherry vinification, nor is the vineyard entirely irrelevant in the formation of a sherry’s character. If that were so, there would have been no reason to prize one vineyard over another: It is difficult to believe that the renowned pagos of Macharnudo or Carrascal gained their exalted reputations by virtue of creating the most neutral wines possible. If anything, the reverse is true. But today, the sherry culture is so disconnected from its vineyards that in most cases the exact origin of the wines is not even known.

It is tempting to believe that what exists today has always been so, and yet, looking back at the history of the sherry region, we see a rich vineyard culture, closely connected to the land. Is it coincidental that the first rigorous agricultural essayist and the father of viticulture, Lucio Columella, was born and raised in this area? Or that, eighteen centuries later, the foundation of modern ampelography should have been written by Simón de Rojas Clemente in Sanlúcar de Barrameda?

It is not sufficiently well-known that by the mid-eighteenth century, an official vineyard classification, complete with rankings, was already in existence in the sherry region, encompassing both the vast albariza vineyards of Jerez and the smaller, more dispersed parcels of Sanlúcar. The wealth of writing on the subject in the nineteenth century, such as the extensive cataloguing of parcels by Parada y Barreto and J.L.W. Thudichum, for example, or the lyric descriptions of the sherry vineyards by Henry Vizetelly, demonstrate the importance accorded to these vineyards in sherry culture. It was only in the latter half of the twentieth century that the dialogue moved from one of origin, rooted in the fundamentals of terroir, to one of process, emphasizing the cellar over the vineyard.

In this, as in many other aspects, sherry is related to the wines of Champagne, where the conventional wisdom of the past stated that the base wines used in champagne production were required to be neutral, since the character of the final wine was derived primarily from the processes employed in the cellar, along with its long period of aging on the lees. At least in that region, they have excised this myth from the collective vernacular: Even as recently as ten years ago, one could still hear a winemaker defending the supposed necessity of neutrality in Champenois base wines, yet nobody today, and certainly no winemaker of quality, would claim anymore that this is the goal.

In that region, too, there is a renewed interest in the terroir of the vineyard, with greater emphasis being placed on conscientious viticulture, as well as an increased focus on isolating individual parcels and vinifying them separately in an effort to comprehend the identities and personalities of each. Having thoroughly mastered the technical aspects of winemaking, the Champenois have come to realize that over the last generation they have erroneously neglected the fundamental concepts of the vineyard, and they are making huge strides in the twenty-first century to rectify this.

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L-R: Pilar Pla Pechovierto and Ana Cabestrero of sherry producer El Maestro Sierra; grapes being grown for sherry in Marcharnudo

The parallels with sherry here are striking, and we only hope that a similar movement can occur in the Marco de Jerez. Sadly, the abandonment of vineyard culture in the sherry region has been even more acute than it was in Champagne, making the process of rediscovery all the more difficult. Today, as a result of the utter disdain shown to the region’s vineyards, the struggle has become not just one of recognition but of sheer survival. Top-quality parcels are being neglected or even uprooted, to make way for structures that could surely be located elsewhere: solar panels in Balbaína and Atalaya; real estate in Martín Miguel and Carrascal; wind turbines in Balbaína and Los Tercios.

Worst of all, too many winemakers and winery directors have simply given up, no longer believing that there is a solution to this problem in the near future.

All of this means that any current approach to terroir and vineyards in the sherry district is largely built on memories, shadows and hopes, rather than on tangible reality. Much of this knowledge has been lost, and there appears to be little interest in reclaiming it. It is highly revealing, for example, that in the otherwise thorough and commendable collective volume entitled The Big Book of Sherry Wines, published by the Consejo Regulador, there is not a single article dedicated to terroir and vineyard classification. Sadly, one must accept that the local concern for terroir nowadays is dangerously close to being nonexistent.

It would not be realistic to pretend that returning to an emphasis on terroir and on specific vineyard sites would, in itself, put an end to the problems of the sherry region. But it would be a step towards reclaiming the rich heritage of the region’s historical past, as well as restoring the sherry region’s standing in the eyes of the world’s wine connoisseurs.

Economically speaking, these are challenging times for sherry. In these circumstances, it is understandably difficult to expect costly investments in vineyard improvement. Yet any solution must necessarily contemplate a return to the land, to the greatness of what is small, to the nuances that make a difference. Only when we are finally able to buy a fino grown in Balbaína and drink it side by side with a manzanilla from a plot in Miraflores, or compare a pair of manzanillas—one from musts sourced from Mahina and the other from further inland, be it Carrascal, Trebujena, or Almocadén—will we be able to say that the necessary steps have been taken.

It is our firm belief that those steps should include rejecting the use of selected yeasts, returning to fermentation in 600-liter casks, and encouraging the aging of flor even if there is no later fortification, as well as eliminating the heavy and detrimental filtration so prevalent in these wines.

Essentially, this approach represents a return to the methods of forty or fifty years ago, and an attempt to undo many things that never should have been allowed to take place: multinational corporations concentrating business in the hands of a rich and ignorant few; the disappearance of a cultural core of small growers and winemakers focused on quality; a misplaced and detrimental over-reliance on cooperatives; a movement towards fermenting in stainless-steel tanks of industrial volume rather than traditional wooden casks; and the massive and indifferent blending of musts sourced from a multitude of vineyards.

All of these changes and more have served to erode the quality and standing of the traditional wines of Andalucía over the past half-century. The time for rebuilding is now."

* "Sherry, Manzanilla & Montilla" is now available, priced $29.95.