Under the official name of Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, it is one of Spain's wine regions, a Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP).

[3] After fermentation is complete, the base wines are fortified with grape spirit to increase their final alcohol content.

[4] Wines classified as suitable for aging as fino and Manzanilla are fortified until they reach a total alcohol content of 15.5 percent by volume.

As they age in a barrel, they develop a layer of flor—a yeast-like growth that helps protect the wine from excessive oxidation.

[5][6] In contrast, port wine is fortified halfway through its fermentation, which stops the process so that not all of the sugar is turned into alcohol.

The Moors conquered the region in 711 CE and introduced distillation, which led to the development of brandy and fortified wine.

Wines similar in style to sherry have traditionally been made in the city of Shiraz in mid-southern Iran, but it is thought unlikely that the name derives from there.

Among the spoils Drake brought back after destroying the fleet were 2,900 barrels of sherry that had been waiting to be loaded aboard Spanish ships.

The summer is dry and hot, with temperatures as high as 40 °C (104 °F), but winds from the ocean bring moisture to the vineyards in the early morning and the clays in the soil retain water below the surface.

The must is then fermented in stainless steel vats until the end of November, producing a dry white wine with 11–12 per cent alcohol content.

The word 'solera' means 'on the ground'; this refers to the stacking system that was, and sometimes still is, used, with the youngest barrels at the top and the oldest scale, also somewhat ambiguously called 'the solera', at the bottom.

Of late, sherry producers and marketers have been bottling their wines en rama, with only a light filtration, and often a selection of a favored barrel from a larger solera.

Contrary to what most people think, these sherry-seasoned casks are specifically prepared for the whisky industry, they are not the same as the old (and largely inactive) butts used for the maturation of sherry.

[29] Amontillados and Olorosos will keep for longer, while sweeter versions such as PX, and blended cream sherries, are able to last several weeks or even months after opening since the sugar content acts as a preservative.

Sampling wine directly from a sherry butt may be performed with a characteristic flourish by a venenciador, named after the special cup (the venencia) traditionally made of silver and fastened to a long whale whisker handle.

The cup, narrow enough to pass through the bung hole, withdraws a measure of sherry which is then ceremoniously poured from a head height into a copita held in the other hand.

[31] Many literary figures have written about sherry, including William Shakespeare, Benito Pérez Galdós,[32] and Edgar Allan Poe (in his story "The Cask of Amontillado").

[33] In the UK television show Yes Minister, Jim Hacker frequently drinks sherry with Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Woolley in his office.

Sherry is frequently mentioned in the novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and plays an important role in the narrative: the spy Jim Prideaux is alerted to the presence of a double agent within his division when Russian KGB agents are able to correctly identify the brand of sherry that was consumed during a secret meeting of MI6 personnel.

For example, in 'Rumpole and the Boat People': Dr MacClintock, the slow-speaking, Edinburgh-bred quack to whom my wife, Hilda turns in times of sickness, took a generous gulp of the sherry she always pours him when he visits our mansion flat, (It's lucky that all his N.H.S.

patients aren't so generous or the sick of Gloucester Road would be tended by a reeling medico, yellow about the gills and sloshed on amontillado.