Talk:Sherry

"Spirits"?

"fortified with spirits..." -- clarification needed. spirits currently takes the reader to Alcoholic beverage. Is this what is meant? -- Tarquin 17:21 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)

Replaced spirits with neutral spirits, which is more correct. Dogface 02:50, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I always thought it was brandy - will check. Justinc 10:42, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

changed to brandy - Oxford companion says that is the case (if in a roundabout way); must get the sherry book.

It is NOT brandy which is matured grape spirit. It is clear tasteless spirit. I have seen it myself - too strong to taste. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GinaKendal (talk • contribs) 12:26, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

"Confusing"?

The paragraph I'll copy / paste below is seriously un-Wiki. One editor should not be contradicting or "correcting" the work of a previous editor in the article- someone needs to reword this to stop it sounding like the work of two people who don't agree. Patch86 13:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

" The wording here is confusing. There are two ways in which to produce fortified wines. The Port method, where the fermetation is stopped half way through fermentation by fortifying the wine, so not all the sugars are allowed to turn into alcohol and so leaving a sweet wine. Then the Sherry method where the fortification takes places after the fermentation, so all natural sherries are in fact dry. Any sweetness is applied later. "

Done, merged Gavinuk's comments with the rest of the intro. Hashashin 17:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

merging

most of the info from the 4 variant pages has been transferred to the sherry page but these pages can be expanded on. if (or when) the sherry variant pages contain enough in formation to justify their own pages the variants section should be taken out of the main page. Brinkost 01:17, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I propose that we remove the information that duplicates the varietal pages, but leave the 'Varieties' section there with links to the varietal pages rather than remove the section from the main page completely. Hashashin 02:44, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

There's currently a suggestion that the palo cortado and oloroso pages be merged into this one. At one point all the varietal information was contained within this page and I found it cluttered the sherry page while limiting the amount of varietal information. Having separate varietal pages makes it easy to provide serving suggestions, sub-varieties, examples, etc for each variety, which would be awkward on the main sherry page. I recently added a lot of specific information to the palo cortado page and I would like to expand on the oloroso page some more as well. I don't think it would be an improvement to remove those pages and merge them into this one, but I'm curious to hear the argument in favor of merging. Hashashin 13:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Howdy! My primary motivation in suggesting a merge was to limit the number of wine-related stubs in favor of more complete articles per discussions over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wine. After looking at the palo cortado and oloroso articles, I was concerned about this ability to develop into more then just stubs. However I will freely admit that I am not an expert at Sherry's and will certainly bow to another editor's expertize in this matter. If you can expand those articles to hopefully at least Start status, that would be fantastic. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand your point (for example the 'sweet sherry' and 'cream sherry' articles weren't really going anywhere), but I do think the remaining varietal pages can (and should) be developed further. I guess I'm not sure at what point one of the varietal pages deserves to have the 'stub' tag removed. The Fino, Manzanilla, and Amontillado pages have graduated, I think the Palo Cortado page is a bit more than a stub at the moment (but I'm not sure), and I intend to build up the Oloroso page a bit more and add some images to all of them if I can. What differentiates a 'start' from a 'stub'? Hashashin 19:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

This page explains all that sort of thing. mikaul 09:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, mikaul. I've added some additional sections to the sherry varietal pages, and based on the Assessment page I think I can move the palo cortado and oloroso pages up to 'start' status at this point. Any objections? Hashashin 18:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Since there are no objections, I'll go ahead and move palo cortado and oloroso up to 'start' and remove the merge tags. Hashashin 15:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitely start. Great work and thank you! Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

brandy de jerez

Brandy de Jerez redirects here, but there's no explanation of the term. Am I right in assuming that it's something different from Sherry? Anyhow, someone please add an explanation or remove the redirect if it's inappropriate.

"Brandy de Jerez" is brandy from Jerez, not sherry. It would be more appropriate to redirect to the Brandy article unless a more specific one exists. Hashashin 04:29, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Not right volume of teh casks.

The casks are not 600 liter but special made and contains 555 liter and are called "pipe". The tree sort are right.

Can you provide a reference for this? Most of the material I can find either says the casks are 600 liters, or is is vague about the size, implying that it may change from one bodega to another. Hashashin 09:49, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The wooden casks, or botas as they are called have varied widely in size, capacity and type depending on bodega conditions and storage space. These days the most preferred and most widely used type is one made of American oak of 600 litres capacity. gavinuk www.madaboutsherry.com Gavinuk 21:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

But essential information is missing

How do one drink it? Right now I consume it like 10 degrees C from large wine glass. But I don't really know it is right way?

Let's not forget that sherry is a white wine and the same rules apply when it comes to serving. A Fino and Manzanilla tastes much better if it has been chilled, but don't freeze them. Sherries with more body need only to be slightly chilled and the lovely dessert sherries are best served at chilled too. There is no need to warm any type of sherry. gavinuk www.madaboutsherry.com Gavinuk 21:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Aha.. I have been wondering about something that is related. If I drink red wine, I get a sort of allergic reaction I think - actually I may throw up after just one glass! White wines - and sherry - no problem. How is sherry compared to red wine in this respect? If anyone knows, it would be a nice addition to the article. SWA 20:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Expansion required

Generally, this article gives a good basic grounding in Sherry wines. I would suggest that re-working is required as the article does not go into any detail as to the production methods, history of, and market importance of the wines. There are also some factual defects: there are more than three grape varieties used in its production (although three make up almost all of the blends in most sherries); sweet sherry is not a naturally occuring type, but is blended and manufactured so after production and amontillado (and fino-amontillado), and manzanilla (and manzanilla passada), are in fact varieties of finos produced under slightly different methods. In answer to how to drink fino, chilled, but not icy and traditionally served in a 'copita', a tulip shaped glass, just slightly smaller than the ISO wine tasting glass. --russ 21:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

After the sherry region was attacked by phylloxera in 1894, vineyards were re-planted with just three grape varieties, Palomino Fino, Moscatel and Pedro Ximenez, these are the only grapes permitted in the production of sherry, of which 95% of sherry is made with Palomino. gavinuk Gavinuk 21:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The 'History' section has been a bit messy. I reorganized it so it's more or less in chronological order, and added a fact or two, but we should beef this section up a bit and then perhaps move it up above the 'Styles' section once it's in better shape. Hashashin 00:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

"Fleming"

I corrected a couple of typos here, but i'm not certain that this is the best translation of the saying; since i don't speak the language, however, i'll leave it to someone who does....i assume it wants to say something like, "Penicillin heals the sick; sherry raises the dead"? And, how do we refer to the language? Fleming links to a disambiguation page; the language is called either Flemish or Dutch, right? but i don't want to offend anyone with the wrong choice. Lindsay 19:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed this; it seems that the contributor was trying to reference a popular quote attributed to Sir Alexander Fleming, rather than the Flemish. Hashashin 14:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Etymology / Persian

The article says: ...the town's Persian name (...) was Xerex (Shariz, in Persian شريش)...
Something's wrong here:

• What does "Xerex" have to do with "Shariz" if both are supposed to be the original persian name?
• The arabic script spells sh'rish and not sh'riz.

--BjKa 11:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Good points, I'll fix that first one. Xerex is the Latin name, apparently a sononym of Shariz and a formal translation the Perso-Arabic script. Also the Moors brought the sharrish sound presumably as a corruption of the Persian pronunciation: if you know how to correct the script to read sh'riz, go ahead! mikaul 10:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The sources I'm reading usually give the Moorish/Arabic name of the town as "Sherish," (the NY Times has the most bizarre variation I've seen: "Scxherisch") and the Roman name "Seret." I've also read that before the Romans, the Phoenicians called it "Xera." Are we just referring to different transliterations of the same names? i.e. Xerex=Seret, and Shariz=Sherish? If so, I think the timeline can be clarified a little. I'm also having trouble finding references to the Rustamid dynasty's influence in Spain (their sphere was mostly Algeria) so I'm curious if anyone knows where that reference comes from. Hashashin 18:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it's from two similar-sounding names which were interchangable over the centuries, but I can't find a citable source. I wonder if this section of the Jerez article is any use at all - there's no citation there either, either! - but at least there's a clear timeline. If you ever find more info, you might want to help out with the Early history section... mikaul^talk 19:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

There's some good information about the history of the Islamic empire in Spain from 711 to 1492 here, but there is no mention of the Rustamid dynasty being involved. I'm tempted to remove that reference while revising the 'history' section of this article. I think this whole "Shiraz" connection is a bit of a stretch. Hashashin 15:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I found the source of that Rustamid factoid: 143.167.21.109. He seems to have gone around inserting references to Persia in a lot of articles, I'm going to go ahead and revert this to the Moorish/Arabic reference that was there before and has references to support it. Hashashin 16:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice one. It's worth a look at the potted history on the DO site for a viable expresion of the various naming conventions, including a ref to a map which backed up a high court injunction in 1967 in favour of Spanish producers' right to the name. Incidentally, I think it might be nice to keep the Arabic script, assuming we can find a verifiable transliteration. mikaul^talk 17:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, BjKa above says the Arabic script reads "sh'rish," which is consistent with the most common transliteration (Sherish). Hashashin 17:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Merging "sweet" and "cream"

There's no reason for these to have a page of their own, even considering their popularity in the UK for so many years. Whereas they should be a little more prominent in the article - the history section is a little wooly and fails to connect the popluarity of sweet/cream sherry with UK palettes - there is also a need to beef up the article in general. The es: version isn't much help, unfortunately. mikaul 10:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I pulled the most relevant information from the "sweet sherry" page into this article already and I think we can delete the 'sweet' and 'cream' variety pages any time. Hashashin 13:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Whose law?

"and will prosecute producers of similar wines from other places using the same name. By law, Sherry must come from the triangular area of the province of Cádiz between Jerez, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María."

When the article says "By law", I think it's too ambiguous as to whose law it is. Is it Spanish, or EU, or US? Regardless, laws are not universal, and the jurisdiction of the law should be stated. A cite would be nice, too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.77.143.184 (talk) 05:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

• Spanish law, the one which formed the Denominación in 1933. I'll add it in as it clearly does need qualifying. mikaul^talk 10:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Potential external link

I'd like to get some editors thoughts on including a link of the Sherry episode from WLTV. While it does have a "wine review" element that doesn't exactly jive with WP:EL, it does offer a fair bit of encyclopedic discussion on Sherry in particular the different styles and characteristics of those styles. So what do you think? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd support it, can't see the harm. The link would need to read something like "Sherry introduction by Gary Vaynerchuk" or something. MURGH ^disc. 01:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

availability of Sherry

There used to be a line in the article stating that very few varieties of sherry were available more than 20 miles outside the area. In addition, that there were more varieties of sherry (and port and madiera) available in the UK than almost anywhere except in the three towns themselves.

I assume this was deleted because it was too vague and possibly an opinion. However, I am willing to verify it from my own knowledge. Probably it needs a wine importer / expert to supply a recognised opinion. Would this suffice? Salisbury-99 (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia's policies we would need a reliable source that could be independently verified. Unfortunately most person knowledge would be considered original research. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 22:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"Widely regarded"? There's no evidence for that

"Sherry is today widely regarded by wine experts[1] as "underappreciated"[2] and a "neglected wine treasure".[3]"

While there're a couple of references to some wine critics and writers who see the wine as underappreciated, there's no evidence that this is a "wide" sentiment. Thus, the sentence will be tweaked. You may change it should evidence about the magnitude of the sentiment emerge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TippTopp (talk • contribs) 03:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I experience an involuntary shudder each time I see the phrase "widely considered" or somesuch on a WP page. It's easy to say, and simultaneously carries no real information while paradoxically also being quite a bold statement. To be fair it is a sentiment that comes up a lot in wine writing, with critics regularly despairing that sherry is usually dismissed as a cheap, sweet wine drunk by great aunts and vicars, but even so, and even if a source asserts this is a widely held view - which is a subjective assessment itself - I agree that the statement is best avoided. Some is probably better, although still a bit WP:WEASEL. I'd also suggest that the point is better made as the final sentence in the lead, rather than in the first paragraph. --Nickhh (talk) 17:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There is much truth in the widely regarded as unappreciated claim. Hearsay but true. Ask ANY wine writer or wine merchant "what do you think about Sherry" and they will ALL say lovely things like "love drop", "shame it does not sell", ... Not that opinions matter in Wikipedia which is for information and not opinion. --GinaKendal (talk) 13:20, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Formatting

This edit, which I think was trying to restore the missing section edit marks, seems to have mucked up the formatting a little, creating huge white spaces and indenting some paragraphs. I did try to sort it out, but was defeated. If anyone is more technically minded .. --Nickhh (talk) 17:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't figure it out either. I'll put out a call for help. Gigs (talk) 19:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I figured out something that will work using {{stack}}. The only downside is that it makes the pictures flow irrelevant to the text that is beside it (basically it makes a vertical gallery), but it is a compromise we will have to live with I think. Gigs (talk) 22:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, that seems to be be better, and to have solved both issues, even if it leaves everything a bit one-dimensional visually. I've reordered them so that they follow the text a little better (I'm not sure that they ever did 100% though). Ultimately I think the problem is that there are probably too many pictures, but hey, whatever. --Nickhh (talk) 12:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Sherry, Oloroso etc. should always be capitalised. never "sherry", "oloroso" etc. They are protected terms — Preceding unsigned comment added by GinaKendal (talk • contribs) 12:23, 24 May 2012 (UTC) --GinaKendal (talk) 14:03, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

It's quite common not to see them capitalised and WP does tend to avoid capitalisation where real world usage is mixed. Sherry doesn't have to be upper case simply because it's a protected name (nor is it necessarily the means to marking the substantive distinction between Jerez sherries and generic "sherry" - precisely because the name is protected, sherry means wine from Jerez by definition, not via capitalisation). I'll leave the capitals that you changed here for consistency, and because there's no point swinging back and forth en masse though. N-HH talk/edits 18:47, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Eh, I would say it is only "common" among the vernacular slang usage of people referring to any oxidized fortified wine as "sherry". (Much like how people often to refer to anything with bubbles as "champagne" regardless of where it comes from) It is far more consistent to maintain the capitalization when talking about the actual Spanish wine from Jerez and allow the lower case to refer to the semi-generic. I would argue that this distinction is far more common in the wine world much like it is with Champagne with people leaving the semi-generic stuff lowercase but referring to Champagne With a Capital 'C' when talking about the actual French wine. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:02, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that is correct or that the distinction has the weight suggested. As I say, sherry has to be from Jerez (or thereabouts) to be properly called sherry - whether that is rendered as "sherry" or "Sherry" is merely a subsequent stylistic choice that some writers and publishers will make one way and others the other, not one probative in itself of meaning or provenance. It is a generic term, albeit one with a precise and legal definition - the term sherry should not be used at all for other wines, whether capped or not. Of the three specialist wine books I have just randomly grabbed off a shelf, two use lower case and only one upper. Again plucked genuinely at random, this time off the web, here's a Daily Telegraph piece - a conservative paper that tends to favour more capitalisation not less - by their wine writer, with the "s" down. With C/champagne (and also Rioja, Bordeaux, Burgundy etc) there's the additional pro-capitals argument that the name of the wine is the same exactly as the name of the place, hence retaining capitals is simply following that. Anyway, I don't want to start an argument over this and, as I say, I'm personally fine with capitalisation as long as it's consistent in any one space, as it is here. As it happens, my preference generally would be for lower case - but that's the point, it's an issue of choice, there's no right or wrong involved and I'm certainly not going to change it here. N-HH talk/edits 07:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Definition

Is sherry a type of wine, or a brand name, or what? I thought previously that "sherry" was merely a type of wine. For example, in Witness for the Prosecution, set in mid-twentieth century England, a lady offers a gentleman some sherry. Must we think that this wine was imported from the south of Spain? Or could it have been made elsewhere, despite current Spanish legislation regarding terminology? --Uncle Ed (talk) 01:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

"Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez, Spain. In Spanish, it is called vino de Jerez." Nuttish (talk) 00:45, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Typically Sherry (capitalized) is the Spanish fortified wine from Jerez while sherry (with a little "s") is a style of wine done in imitation of original Sherry. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

According to EU legislation "Sherry" is a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) for wines produced in Jerez, El Puerto, Sanlucar, Chipiona or Chiclana. No such (legal) thing "sherry" outside the are. Also protected are Oloroso etc. and these must be capitalised and lower case 2sherry" is bes avoided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GinaKendal (talk • contribs) 12:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC) --GinaKendal (talk) 14:03, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The lead

Recent additions seem to have left us with a somewhat sprawling lead for the last couple of months, with eg the lengthy Jancis Robinson quote, and discussion about how the types of sherry are made coming before it's even been explained what they are and the differences. I've cut back on it a bit and reordered it, so that in fact it's more like it used to be here. N-HH talk/edits 14:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Manzanilla?

Is Manzanilla officially regarded as a variety of sherry? In the UK Manzanilla is usually displayed alongside sherry, but the bottle labels that I have seen do not actually describe it as sherry (unlike Fino, etc). Presumably the deciding point is whether it is accepted as sherry under the D. O. system.86.180.94.60 (talk) 22:56, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Despite being made down the road, as it were, it's always been described as a sherry in every book or piece of writing I've ever seen and, as you say, is always sold as one commercially. This site appears to answer the more specific question – it's a DO in its own right but also part of the wider Jerez DO region at the same time. N-HH talk/edits 10:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

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Infobox

Sherry

Type	Fortified wine
Country of origin	Spain
Region of origin	Jerez de la Frontera
Alcohol by volume	18-22
Color	Orange-brown
Ingredients	White grapes
Variants	see text

Should the infobox give details of the wine region ({{Infobox wine region}}, current), or the drink itself ({{Infobox drink}}, see example, right. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 19:52, 16 July 2023 (UTC)