Manzanilla Sherry

Manzanilla is the lightest, driest and most delicate member of the Sherry family: a flor-aged, fino-style fortified white wine made only in the coastal town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, on the Atlantic edge of Cádiz province in Andalusia, southern Spain. Like Fino it is built on the neutral Palomino grape, fermented bone dry and fortified with grape spirit to around 15 percent so that a living veil of flor yeast can grow across its surface and shield it from air as it ages biologically in a solera. What sets it apart is Sanlúcar's cool, humid, salt-laden sea air, which feeds a thicker, more persistent veil of flor and leaves the wine paler, fresher and lighter than a Jerez Fino, with a famously briny, saline tang and a chamomile-like lift said to have given the wine its name. Pale straw-gold and utterly dry, it smells of sea breeze, green apple, yeast and salted almonds, and it is served well chilled as the quintessential aperitif of Andalusia's seafood coast — poured beside prawns, fried fish, olives and cured ham.