On a recent trip to Andalucia, in Spain, my wife and I only drank one bottle of table wine. We fell in love again with Fino and Manzanilla sherries. Both wines are dry, white and fortified to between 14.5 and 16% alcohol. Fino is produced in Jerez and nearby Puerto on the coast. Fino is more famous than its Manzanilla cousin which is produced on the coast in Sanlúcar de Barrameda - not far from Jerez.
Both wines are produced by the same method from Palomino grapes. Manzanilla has a more salty taste. The saltiness is reputedly derived for the fact that the barrels, used to produce the wine, are more exposed to the salty air of the Atlantic than the Fino wine of Jerez which is further in land..
Both wines go very well with tapas. Whilst in Andulucia, we ate a wide range of foods ranging from shell fish to steak and sweet desserts. Fino and Manzanilla went well with all sorts of this food. I can think of only one other wine that I could drink throughout a meal and that is Champagne.
You have to drink the youngest wines available and drink them chilled; then, if possible, finish the bottle. A 750 ml bottle will easily keep 4 or 6 friends happy over a meal. These wines should only be drunk with good food. Although stronger than table wines Fino and Manzanilla are best sipped rather than slugged back. One copita of these wines can quite easily last a whole meal.
We brought a litre bottle back from our trip and drank about 125 ml each for four nights with fish, meat and dessert. I estimate that a 125 ml glass has about 2 units of alcohol so over four nights we only consumed about 8 units of alcohol- how very abstemious of us and the ministry of health would be very proud.
After the first serving we used a "vacu-vin" stopper to draw all the air out of the bottle and then kept the wine in the fridge; this way our litre bottle would have lasted a week if we could have resisted having a sip every evening.
Fino and Manzanilla have a nutty taste and they are tangy with a hint of fresh bread. They have lower levels of acidity but the higher levels of acetaldehyde as opposed to organic acids give them that typical sherry taste.
They are lovely wines and are almost always worthy of consideration when eating good food which is full of flavour. It is time to give both of these great wines a try.
http://www.sherrynotes.com/sherry-types/types-of-sherry-manzanilla/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flor
http://www.bbr.com/region-5401-fino?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=SD%20-%20Regions%20-%20Port&utm_term=fino%20sherry&utm_content=Fino
