Palo Cortado

Palo Cortado is the fourth of the classic dry Sherries and the hardest to place. It starts life as a Fino, under the living veil of flor yeast that keeps air away and gives the wine its pale, saline, bruised-apple cut; then the veil fails, the wine is fortified higher, and it spends the rest of its long life ageing in open contact with air like an Oloroso. What comes out has the delicate, high-toned nose of an Amontillado over the weight, depth and length of an Oloroso — the classic shorthand in Jerez. It is bone dry, deep chestnut to mahogany in colour, strong at roughly 17 to 22 percent alcohol, and it smells of hazelnut and walnut, dried orange peel, tobacco and polished old wood over a savoury, balsamic rancio depth. It is also scarce, and more mythologised than any other Sherry.