The order of the day
for the next plenary meeting of the Consejo Regulador contains two matters
which have long been contentious and need resolution. Item 4, headed “Applications in Relation
to the Zona de Crianza” begins with section 4:1 in which bodegas in the production
zone wish to extend the crianza zone to cover the totality of the production
zone. At present, the crianza zone only includes the towns of Jerez, Sanlúcar
and El Puerto de Santa María. Bodegas there can buy wine or mosto from bodegas
in the production zone, age it in the crianza zone and sell it as DO Sherry,
but the original producers can’t sell what is pretty well the same wine
directly as DO Sherry because they are not in the crianza zone. Some great
wines from places like Trebujena, Chipiona and Chiclana cannot, therefore call themselves
DO Sherry.
Section 4:2 covers an issue has been debated
for at least a decade, which is the desire of the bodegas in Jerez and El
Puerto to put an end to Fino from Sanlúcar. Their argument is that Sanlúcar has
its own wine: Manzanilla, which can only be produced there, so it is unfair
that it can also produce Fino. If bodegas in Jerez and El Puerto want to sell
Manzanilla, they either have to buy it from bodegas in Sanlúcar or have their
own bodega there, which adds considerably to their costs.
As things stand, while both Fino and Manzanilla
can be made with the same grapes from the same DO vineyards, the only real
difference is that Manzanilla must be aged in Sanlúcar where the flor is
permanent all year round. The result is Manzanilla though, not Fino, according
to the Jerez and El Puerto Bodegas who object to the fact that they can’t
produce Manzanilla, but Sanlúcar can produce Fino. The sanluqueños, however, feel
that they could be deprived of a historic right, and that they can indeed
produce Fino, even though not a great deal of it is actually produced, and most
of that is for BOB – and they don’t have to buy it in, making them competitive.
Having consulted independent experts on the subject, Fedejerez has prepared a
report which will no doubt be produced at the meeting.
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