Andalucia has been associated mainly with sherry, but latest development also see the spread of unfortified wines, both dry and sweet. The mountains here rise straight up along the coast, resulting in altitude that help to produce fresh and ripe wines. Malaga is mostly for its fortified sweet by adding spirit during fermentation or drying the grapes. Lopez Hermanos and Telmo Rodriguez produce good wines here. The unfortified white is called Sierras de Malaga. Sherry’s great distinction is its finesse, coming from the combination of the chalk, Palomino Fino grape and skill of the winemaking. Many people had given Jerez a wrong quality impression because of the poor wine shipped in the 1970 to 1980s. But through closure, consolidation and takeover now there are far fewer sherry producers. Sherry needs the chalk soil, or albarizas, for producing the best wine.
The shipper’s headquarters and bodegas are located in Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlucar de Barrameda, and Puerto de Santa Maria. In these bodegas, the butts are typically put in three tiers high rolls, for the wine to mature and blend under the solera system. When the wine has got over its fermentation it is sorted into categories, with different styles. 
The new wine is put into the youngest level of a criadera, and each year a proportion of wine from the solera is taken from the oldest and final stage of the criadera to be bottled. Wines from the next criadera is taken to fill up the butt and the process repeats. The more stages or criaderas, the finer the wine. All sherry is originally classified to be a light and delicate fino, or a fuller wine in oloroso. The fino will mature under a layer of protective yeast called flor. Oloroso are matured in contact with oxygen, and fortified to more than 15.5% to prevent the growth of flor.
Finos should be drunk fresh and they are fast-faders. Even lighter and drier are the manzanillas, with a salty tang. An aged manzanilla (pasada) is very good with seafood. Amontillado is a darker and more complicated wine. They can be old finos. Oloroso is dry, dark and biting. Commercial brands labeled oloroso or cream are younger and blended with sweetening wines. Pale cream is the same except removing the color. Palo Cortado is the true, classical, rich-yet-dry rarity, something between amontillado and oloroso. A way to signal the notable age and quality of the sherry is the VOS and VORS grading. They are more than 20 and 30 years old sherry.
Montilla-Moriles has a similar chalky soil in the best vineyards but generally on sand. The best grape is Pedro Ximenez. The hot climates result in very high natural sugar and thus always shipped without fortification in contrast to sherry. It is made similar to sherry. It got the scents of black olive.
The wines that I got / tasted from Andalucia:
- La Guita Manzanilla
- Nectar PX Sherry
- Tio Pepe Fino Muy Seco
- Valdespino Tio Diego Amontillado
- Lustau Capataz Andres Deluxe Cream
- Valdespino Solera 1842 Oloroso VOS
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