Tour of Andalusian Wines

In the sherry towns a pale wine sits in a barrel that is not filled to the top. A film of yeast — flor — grows on the surface and keeps air off the liquid. That is biological ageing. It gives you fino in Jerez and El Puerto, and manzanilla if the same work happens in Sanlucar de Barrameda, next to the river mouth. Manzanilla is a legal name tied to that town, not a grape.

If the flor dies and air reaches the wine, you get amontillado: first biological, then oxidative, amber and nutty. Oloroso never really lives under flor; it ages in contact with air from the start, darker and broader. Palo cortado sits between those two. Sweet bottles are usually Pedro Ximenez or moscatel, from grapes dried in the sun, or a dry wine blended with that syrup. Cream is a blended sweet style, not a separate vineyard.

The Marco de Jerez is the triangle of Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa Maria and Sanlucar de Barrameda. Palomino is the grape for the dry wines. The white albariza soil holds water through the summer. Climate and that soil are why flor behaves as it does here.

Under the Sherry designation you will see fino, manzanilla, amontillado, oloroso, palo cortado, and the sweets — moscatel and Pedro Ximenez. An oloroso can be dry. “Between sweet and dry” on an old label often meant a blended cream, not the style itself. Town: Jerez.

Montilla, Moriles, Aguilar de la Frontera and Cabra sit inland, hotter and farther from the sea. The grape is Pedro Ximenez, not Palomino. It ripens so far that a fino here often reaches the alcohol it needs without fortification. You still get fino, amontillado, oloroso and a deep sweet PX. Young unaged whites exist too. It is the cousin of sherry, not a copy bottled in Cadiz. Province: Cordoba.

Condado de Huelva is west of the sherry towns. Condado Palido is the pale wine aged under flor — dry, in the fino family. Condado Viejo is the darker oxidative wine, closer to an oloroso. They are not both sweet. The grape that marks the zone is Zalema. The same DO also bottles young white table wine; this coast was early with that style. Province: Huelva.

Malaga wine was famous in Roman times and again in the nineteenth century as a sweet, dark bottle. That line is still the DO Malaga: moscatel and Pedro Ximenez, often from sun-dried grapes. The Axarquia hills behind Velez-Malaga still grow moscatel on steep slate. Malaga Virgen is a well-known brand of that sweet style, not the name of the whole appellation.

DO Sierras de Malaga covers the same map for dry wine: white, rose and red, unfortified. Ronda and the Serrania are where most visitors taste those bottles. Two labels, one province. More detail: wines in Malaga and visiting a winery.

DO Granada covers the province. The sub-zone that matters on a map is Contraviesa-Alpujarra: vines on the ridge between Sierra Nevada and the sea, often above a thousand metres. White, rose and red, dry or off-dry. Older talk of “vinos de la costa” or costa wine meant a rough local white from those slopes, sometimes fortified and left to age. What you buy now is usually a still mountain wine, not a rancio curiosity. Province: Granada.

Jaen makes small lots under a geographical indication, not a sherry-style DO. Bailen in the north bottles red and rose that sit closer to La Mancha than to Jerez. Torreperogil, to the east, is known for lighter reds. Lopera, to the west, feels the pull of Montilla-Moriles. Do not expect a fino here. Province: Jaen.

Seville is not a big wine province. Some land around Lebrija falls inside the wider sherry production area. The Aljarafe, west of the city, still makes traditional generoso-style wines. Los Palacios, to the south, is more about young white and mistela — a sweet, partly fermented must with added spirit, sold in bulk as much as in bottle. Province: Seville.