The fortunes of sherry have waxed and waned over the centuries. Today most people think of sherry as either a bone dry fino like Tio Pepe or a sweet nut brown drink like Bristol Cream, yet best-selling as these two drinks are, there is a wealth of fine wines to be explored from Jerez that represent the best of what sherry can offer.

Sherry is made primarily from the Palomino grape. When the wine has finished fermenting it's graded depending on the 'flor', the white yeast florescence that grows on the surface of the wine. Wines with a lot of flor become a fino or one of its derivatives, wines with less flor become either an oloroso. This difference in flor dictates the character of the wine - the wine with an abundance of flor will have a light, dry character of much finesse, the wine with less flor will become a darker, fuller oloroso.

A fino can turn slowly into an amontillado, named after the town of Montilla whose wines show a similar style. The flor becomes darker and so does the wine, until it reaches the stage that it becomes an amontillado. Most of the commercially available sherries that carry this name are not real amontillados, they are merely sweetened and blended finos. Finos are best drunk young and they do not improve in the bottle. Once opened they should be drunk quickly and should be served chilled.

The darker wines that are set apart as olorosos are ranked again as they age into oloroso, oloroso raya and raya, the rayas being the less elegant wines. Olorosos are fuller in style than amontillados, exhibiting what the Spaniards call 'gordura' or fatness. All sherries in their natural state are dry, but olorosos are sometimes sweetened and are sold commercially as 'cream sherry'.

There is another style of sherry called Manzanilla, which is made in Sanlucar de Borrameda, where the summers are cooler and the salt air imparts a saltiness to the resulting wine. Manzanillas are made by a system known as 'solera'. The solera consists of a number of casks of similar wine from which wines are drawn for bottling. The casks are then topped up with younger wines of a similar style, and those in turn are topped up with younger wines. As many as eight ranks can form a solera, and they are known as a 'criadera', or nursery. What this system achieves is a continuity of style, since the younger wine invariably assumes the characteristics of the older wine in the solera.

Wine of the Week

A & R Valdespino Oloroso, 1842 solera.

The solera system began in the early 1800s and this solera is one of the earliest. This is an example of what fine sherry can be, a wine of intense complexity and immense finesse. The difference between this wine and the cheap sherries on the supermarket shelves is huge. It's slow to deteriorate in the bottle, so it can be drunk a little at a time, perhaps as an apéritif. Serve it at room temperature in a tulip shaped glass that allows you to experience the bouquet.

Available from Searsons, Monkstown; Heron's Wine Shop, Boyle; The Galway Wine Company, Salthill; The Wicklow Wine Company and Pat Stewart's Wines, Sligo.
RRP €36.