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Why Is It Called Sherry?
The word Sherry is actually a garbling of the name "Jerez," a city in sunny southwest Spain famous for its fortified wines--and challenging for English speakers to pronounce.
How Do They Make Sherry?
- Making sherry involves a unique blending process called the solera system.
- Sherry is aged in groupings of barrels from various vintages.
- The solera's purpose is to blend together wines from different vintages to create a consistent style of wine.
- As the wine ages, equal portions of wine are occasionally drawn off of each barrel in the grouping.
It works like this: Wine is removed from the oldest barrel in the group. Then an equal measure is taken from the next oldest to top off the oldest barrel, and then the next oldest refills the depleted one, and so on throughout the grouping until, finally, new wine is added to the youngest barrel in the group. This process of blending the wines is called "running the scales." The resulting mixture of vintages explains why bottles of sherry are almost never vintage dated.
What's Cooking Sherry?
Cooking sherry is never for drinking. It is sherry to which salt has been added to preserve it. When cooking with cooking sherry, take this extra salt into consideration when salting your dish. Better yet, cook with a good drinkable sherry instead.
A Little Historical Perspective
Sherry's pedigree goes way back to the late 15th century, when it was valued for its staying power--like port, sherry's high level of alcohol helped preserve it during long sea voyages. Sherry was among the first wines to reach American shores in the 16th century.
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