Palomino grown on the blinding-white albariza chalk of Jerez makes a neutral wine; the bodega transfigures it. Under a living veil of flor yeast, finos age pale, bone-dry and pungent; where the veil is not kept, amontillados and olorosos darken by slow oxidation. The solera — patient fractional blending across rows of old butts — means no glass ever comes from a single year.
England made its fortune: "sack" was Falstaff's beloved "sherris", and when Drake raided Cádiz in 1587 he carried off 2,900 butts, an advertisement no merchant could buy. From salt-licked manzanilla to black-sweet Pedro Ximénez, sherry spans the widest register in wine — and remains, by common critical consent, the world's great undervalued one.