Winemaking
The solera system
Fractional blending across tiers of barrels, so no wine is of a single vintage.
Overview
Barrels are arranged in tiers by age. Wine is drawn from the oldest tier for bottling, and that tier is topped up from the next oldest, and so on up to the newest.
The effect is a continuous average: every bottle contains a fraction of wine from many years, and a tiny trace of very old wine indeed.
It produces remarkable consistency, and it means sherry is almost never vintage-dated.
Age designations like VOS and VORS refer to the average age of the blend, not to any single component.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Consejo Regulador de las Denominaciones de Origen Jerez-Xérès-Sherry — Consejo Regulador del Jerez
More in winemaking
Winemaking
Fermentation
Yeast converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide — the step that makes wine wine.
Winemaking
How red wine is made
Fermenting grape juice in contact with the skins, which is where colour and tannin come from.
Winemaking
How white wine is made
Pressing the juice off the skins before fermentation, then fermenting the clear juice.