The potential is evident in Sanlúcar. In the winding streets of the old part of town, baking under the intense Andalucían sun on a sleepy Sunday, old men congregated at the bar at Taberna Guerrita to watch soccer on television, eating ham or potato-and-egg tortilla and drinking beer or house-made manzanilla, a more delicate fino made only in Sanlúcar. A car drove by slowly, seeking that most coveted of perks, a parking spot in the shade. On a nearby church steeple, a stork fed its chicks on a huge unruly nest, a timeless tableau.

Alongside the tavern was a small modern wine shop and laboratory-like tasting room opened by Armando Guerra, the tavern proprietor’s son. A surprising juxtaposition of old and new, it offered one of the best selections of sherry in Spain, along with the complete Equipo Navazos line.

In Andalucía, sherry is most often a dry wine in a range of styles. Pale fino, served cool, is light and dry with a refreshing, saline tang that goes beautifully with seafood. Manzanilla, the Sanlúcar specialty, is more delicate yet with an intensity of salty flavor that belies its fragile texture. Amontillado, a long-aged fino, develops a complexity that can astound, while Oloroso, a sherry made in a completely different fashion, is rich, powerful, bone dry and contemplative. (I’ll have a lot more to say on what sherries to seek out and where to find them in this column next week.)

Even though conventional dry sherries in familiar brands like Tío Pepe, La Gitana and La Ina can be good, they pale in comparison to sherries made with care in small amounts.

“Our history has not been static,” said Mr. Saldaña of the Consejo Regulador. “New types of wine have always appeared, and that tradition should be continued. We need to rethink the core of what sherry is. The important thing is that the identity not be lost.”

If that were to happen, one could argue that the sherry industry itself would be most to blame. In most wine regions, vintage is crucial, as is the place in which the grapes are grown. But both of these factors play little role in modern sherry. Dry sherries, made from the palomino grape, evolve under the solera system, in which newer vintages are blended with older ones year after year, creating a family tree of blends that can stretch back decades.

After the wine is fermented, it is fortified with neutral spirits to around 15 percent alcohol and placed in old barrels generally made of American oak. Unlike most wine barrels, which are completely filled to prevent oxidation, a little headroom is left in sherry barrels, which offers a surface for a film of yeast to grow. This yeast, or flor, protects the wine from oxidation and contributes to the distinctively saline, nutlike flavor of fino sherries.