Sherry wine styles
And what isn't wine
The grapes of the Sherry Region
Palomino Fino
The queen grape of the Sherry Region, making up over 90% of the vineyard. Low in acidity and neutral in character, it's the perfect canvas on which biological and oxidative ageing builds the whole range of fortified wines: Fino, Manzanilla, Amontillado and Oloroso.
Pedro Ximénez
A late-harvest grape sun-dried on esparto mats after picking to concentrate its sugars. It produces the densest, longest-lived sweet wines of the region: Pedro Ximénez, with notes of fig, date and raisin.
Moscatel de Alejandría
An aromatic variety grown on small plots, especially near Chipiona. Used mainly to make sweet Moscatel wines with an intense floral and fruity perfume.
Tintilla de Rota
A native red variety from the Cádiz coast, documented since the 17th century and nearly extinct by the 19th. A handful of wineries are reviving it today to make the red wines that are expanding the map of the Sherry Region, traditionally associated only with whites.
Syrah
One of the incomer varieties that has taken best to the Cádiz countryside. It underpins much of the red wine of the IGP Cádiz — on its own or alongside Tintilla de Rota, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon — with dense, spicy wines of ripe fruit, and it also makes rosés around Arcos.
Chardonnay
An international white that in the Jerez countryside gives fresh, fruity wines, away from flor and solera. It is one of the varieties with which the IGP Vinos de la Tierra de Cádiz tells a story quite apart from that of fortified wine.
Malbec
A red of French origin, uncommon in the province, worked by the odd small winery in short runs. It gives light, silky wines with a mineral base far from the New World Malbec cliché, and pale rosés of summer fruit.
Perruno
A white from the pre-phylloxera vineyard, named alongside Palomino and the mantúos in old descriptions of the Jerez vineyard. The 1894 plague and the replanting on American rootstock pushed it out of the region, and the denomination’s regulations admitted it again in 2021. Its genetic material is kept at Rancho de la Merced, the research centre in Jerez.
Cañocazo
Another of the region’s pre-phylloxera whites, present in the Jerez vineyard when vines were still planted ungrafted. It survived in the variety collection at Rancho de la Merced and returned to the denomination’s regulations in 2021; some growers are replanting it today in the Añina pago.
Beba
A vigorous, highly productive white used for both wine and the table, also known as Beba de los Santos and grown across western Andalusia and Extremadura. It was part of the vineyard here before phylloxera and is one of the six pre-phylloxera varieties readmitted to the regulations in 2021.
Vijiriega
An Andalusian white with marked acidity, also grown in the Alpujarra and in the Canaries, where it goes by vijariego. In the Sherry Region it is among the pre-phylloxera varieties readmitted in 2021, and some are vinifying it again in the pagos of Jerez.
Mantúo Castellano
One of the two mantúos of the historic Jerez vineyard, named in old descriptions alongside Palomino and Perruno. It vanished with the rebuilding of the vineyard after phylloxera and returned to the denomination’s regulations in 2021.
Mantúo de Pilas
The region’s other mantúo, kept in the variety collection at Rancho de la Merced and replanted by the projects recovering the pre-phylloxera vineyard in the Añina pago. Readmitted to the denomination’s regulations in 2021.
Biological and oxidative ageing
The defining trait of Sherry wines is the criaderas and soleras system: a dynamic ageing process in which butts of the same tier are partially refilled with wine from the previous tier, blending wines of different ages. In Jerez and El Puerto de Santa María, the flor — a layer of yeast that forms naturally on the wine — protects young Fino and Amontillado from oxidation, giving pale, bone-dry wines. In Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the Atlantic humidity boosts that flor and gives rise to Manzanilla. When the flor is removed or never forms, the wine ages in contact with oxygen and evolves into mahogany-coloured Amontillados and Olorosos with aromas of walnut and fine wood.
The VOS (Vinum Optimum Signatum, at least 20 years old) and VORS (Vinum Optimum Rare Signatum, at least 30 years old) categories certify the average age of the region's oldest soleras, verified by the Consejo Regulador through carbon-14 analysis.
How to read the directory
The Marco de Jerez and the rest of the province
Not every winery in Cádiz makes Sherry, and not every winery making wine in the Marco is on the Consejo Regulador's register. This directory covers both, so it helps to separate two things that often get muddled: where the winery is and which designation it bottles under.
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Sherry Region
The eight municipalities of the historic zone: Jerez, Sanlúcar, El Puerto, Chiclana, Chipiona, Rota, Trebujena and Lebrija. It is the only place in the world where wine is aged under flor through the criaderas y soleras system.
View wineries18
Rest of the province of Cádiz
The Arcos countryside, the Sierra de Cádiz and La Janda. There is no Sherry here — no flor, no soleras — but still reds, whites and rosés, almost always under the Vinos de la Tierra de Cádiz PGI.
View wineriesThe designations of the region
Every profile carries the quality marks the winery bottles under. A winery may hold several — wine and vinegar together is common — or none at all.