It’s like the booze version of the chicken or egg problem. Where do sherry casks come from if people aren’t actually drinking sherry?
Like sherry, sherry casks are thought to be produced in specific locations. The Shelly Triangle in southwestern Spain lies between the cities of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa Maria in the province of Cadiz. Over the centuries, the region has produced legendary sweet and dry wines (all popularly known as sherry). It uses the Solera process, which is a partial blend of new and old vintages and aged in a series of wooden barrels. Originally, sherry casks were simply wooden barrels used to make sherry or, more commonly, to ship it overseas. However, in 1986, Spanish law changed, banning the export of sherry in wooden casks, rendering the previous concept of sherry casks obsolete.
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Until that change, significant quantities of sherry casks were being exported to Britain, once the world’s largest beverage consumer. Frugal and smart people soon found a use for empty barrels. Henry H. Work, author of Wood, Whiskey and Wine: A History of Casks, explains:
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“We used to ship barrels of sherry to places like London, where we bottled the sherry and sold it,” he says. Remaining barrels have become an attractive and cheap resource. “These were opportunistic. They were cheap. We didn’t have to buy new barrels.” “The Scotch distillery didn’t have a resource for used sherry casks because the casks were no longer available for shipping,” says Work.
At that point, however, it wasn’t just frugality or resourcefulness that was pushing the earlier use of sherry casks. Great Fino, Oloroso, Palo Cortado, Pedro Ximénez and Amontillado sherry can be surprisingly complex, with rich aromas of dried fruits, nuts, leather and other attractive characteristics. Some of its flavor and aromatic complexity was appreciated by Scottish distilleries and their customers, Work says.
“If you think there’s an advantage to using sherry casks, a particular flavor that customers like, they’re going to want to keep doing it,” he says.
Initially, the sherry’s lack of character could be rectified by using Paxalette, a Spanish dessert wine. It was commonly used to recondition old and worn sherry casks. However, in 1990, the legal regulations governing Scotch whiskey were changed, known as the Scotch Whiskey Order. Since then, paxalet has been considered a flavoring agent and banned from use in making Scotch whiskey.
These two legal rulings have resulted in significant new business growth in the Shelley Triangle. It is the Sherry Cask Trade, which produces barrels flavored with sherry for export. Today, according to work notes, there are actually two types of sherry casks produced at the Sherry Triangle.
“A person enters the solera process and it stays in that solera for years and years. “And there’s another kind of barrel that Cooper is making, and basically these Cooper are making export-style barrels.”
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These exported, sherry-flavored casks were primarily made for the Scotch whiskey industry, but have since become popular with many other beverages. Due to Spanish law, it cannot be used to export sherry. Nor is it commonly used to make sherry itself – at least not the kind of sherry that people drink. Filled with young sherry. Markus Eder, a dealer of used and new casks, including sherry casks, at Wilhelm Eder, Germany, says the sherry can be used to make as many as half a dozen sherry casks.
“After doing this seasoning five or six times, the sherry becomes unusable, so you either make vinegar or throw it away,” he says. “I know a Spanish bodega, but they make a million liters of sherry just to season the barrels. Basically, the sherry industry is Scottish. He only works for the whiskey industry.” doing.”
I know it sounds exaggerated, but the sheer scale of the sherry cask business today really amazes me. The ongoing whiskey boom, in contrast to the collapse of the sherry wine industry, has increased its importance. Total annual sherry sales are only about one-fifth of their peak 30-40 years ago and, as sherry educator Ruben Luyten reported in sherrynotes, have grown from about 150 million liters per year. In recent years, it has decreased to about 30 million liters. com. (By contrast, the export market for Scotch whiskey alone was around 1 billion liters in 2021.) is growing, Luyten points out: Growing sales of dry sherry are offset by continued losses in his version of Sweet. Overall, the sherry wine industry is much smaller than it once was.
“I don’t think the relevant sales and profits have been disclosed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the sherry cask industry overtakes the wine industry,” Ruyten says.
The math on the back of the envelope indicates that this could already be happening, at least when it comes to barrel numbers. Ruyten said about 84,100 sherry casks were exported last year, but he calculates that the total volume of all sherry wine sold last year was only about 63,600 casks.
So the sherry-flavored cask industry plays a key role in the Sherry Triangle, keeping cooperages, vineyards and winemakers all in business, even if making the sherry people drink is not their main business. . In 2015, the Consejo Regador Regulatory Commission, which manages the “Jerez Queres Sherry” DOP, also initiated regulation of the term “sherry cask”, providing a certificate of authenticity and a number of regulatory standards. Using sherry from the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry DOP, each barrel must be originally filled to at least 85% of its volume and at least two-thirds full for at least one year.
However, Consejo Regulador President César Saldaña says the average age of sherry casks is slightly higher than the minimum.
“The average seasoning is actually 18 months at this point,” he says. “For some of our operators here in Jerez, this has become a very important business.”
He said he plans to expand the regulations on barrels launched by the Consejo Regulador in 2015. The next step is to create a register of distilleries buying certified sherry casks.
“Before we regulated the term ‘sherry casks,’ many distilleries bought casks in different regions of Spain and flavored with different types of wine,” he says. “This second step ensures that producers using the term ‘sherry cask’ on their labels are actually using genuine sherry casks. ”
plus and minus
Today’s sherry casks are different from both production casks and casks used for export prior to 1986, but not necessarily a step back. This month Edinburgh’s Innis & Gunn Brewery released The Original: PX. This is a special sherry cask version of the classic barrel-aged beer, finished with a mix of first fill Pedro Ximénez Hogshead (250 liters) and second fill. Vat of Pedro Ximénez, or 500 liter barrel. Brewery founder and master brewer Dougal Gunn Sharp says modern sherry-finished casks are superior to production and previous shipping casks.
“In some respects, this improves the quality and processing of the finished product,” he says. “The consistency in the barrel has improved a lot. It’s also more sustainable.” I was. This means a fruity and spicy aroma, a sweeter flavor profile, and hints of chocolate and banana. They all passed, he says.
“This is absolutely delicious. One of the best limited edition beers I’ve ever brewed,” he says. Sherry beers remain relatively rare, but the use of sherry casks in Scotch whiskey shows few signs of slowing down. Luyten points out that he sold three times as many sherry casks compared to just five years ago. The cost advantage, Work says, is that they are commonly made from imported American oak, which can cost half the price of French oak or Hungarian oak. That’s it.
As a vestige of the old wine and spirits trade, sherry casks can be difficult to understand, even for those in the beverage industry. customers who think they can easily buy casks that have been used to produce sherry for decades, rather than new American oak casks that have been refurbished. Older, more used production casks are still in existence, he says, but are generally only about seven years old now. They are not easy to find and certainly not cheap.
“If you’re looking for really old barrels, you have to spend money,” he says.
The idea that Scotch producers are not allowed to flavor their whiskey is that most sherry casks are produced specifically for the Scotch whiskey industry, after which the sherry can be discarded or made into vinegar. He says it’s hard to reconcile with the fact that there is sexuality. If the sherry used to flavor sherry casks isn’t actually a drink, what is it?
“More or less, it’s just a taste,” he says. “In my opinion, it would be more honest to allow additives like Paxallet.”
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