{"id":657014,"date":"2025-12-27T02:44:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T02:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657014\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T02:44:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T02:44:45","slug":"thirst-for-whisky-revives-spains-sherry-heartland-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657014\/","title":{"rendered":"thirst for whisky revives Spain\u2019s sherry heartland"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the scion of one of Spain\u2019s sherry dynasties, there is a \u201cdelicious historic irony\u201d about the Scots once more \u201cconquering\u201d his trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demand from Scottish distillers for large quantities of sherry to season casks for ageing single malt has become a huge business,\u201d said Gonzalo del R\u00edo y Gonz\u00e1lez-Gordon, the fifth generation of an aristocratic Anglo-Spanish family who own Gonzalez Byass, the maker of Tio Pepe. <\/p>\n

The descendant of Spanish noblemen and Scottish lairds who emigrated to southern Spain in the 18th century, his family keep alive the trade\u2019s links with Britain, which go back at least 500 years. Many of the British sherry companies, most of which have disappeared since the tipple\u2019s decline from its heyday in the 1970s, were founded by Scottish merchants.<\/p>\n

\u2022 What is a single malt? 30 whisky questions answered<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNow the Scots are back again,\u201d del R\u00edo y Gonz\u00e1lez-Gordon, 72, said. In the family company\u2019s bodegas, the grand old \u201ccathedrals\u201d where sherry is stored and which dominate Jerez like a citadel within a city, stacks of thousands of new oak casks attest to the booming trade with Scotland. <\/p>\n

After decades of falling sales, sherry makers have focused on selling high-quality wines. But demand from the Scottish whisky industry for sherry-seasoned casks has transformed balance sheets across Spain\u2019s \u201csherry triangle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez Byass, which has made wine since 1835, seasons casks for several distillers, including Macallan. The distiller is betting big on the business. It acquired a 50 per cent stake in the sherry producer Grupo Estevez in 2023 as well as buying outright a Jerez cooperage in a major move to control its supply chain.<\/p>\n

\"Gonzalez<\/p>\n

Gonzalez Byass bodega in Jerez. It is the maker of Tio Pepe sherry<\/p>\n

The business is also transforming the landscape. Young golden-leaved vines shimmer in late autumnal sunshine on the region\u2019s gentle slopes, a sign of growth unseen for four decades. In a region where many sherry vineyards vanished beneath olive plantations and solar farms, whisky has become the unlikely engine of revival.<\/p>\n

Catina Aveledo, the vineyard manager for Barbadillo, a leading sherry producer from Sanlucar de Barrameda, pointed to hectares of newly planted vines. She said: \u201cForty years ago it was a vineyard and now we have recovered it. We have replanted about 80 hectares overall in the last year or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Catina\"Sherry<\/p>\n

Sherry casks at Barbadillo. Below, its vineyard<\/p>\n

\"Workers<\/p>\n

The regeneration of vineyards, in this case in the historic Balbaina pago, or terroir, outside Sanlucar, has reversed a trend of deep decline. Thousands of hectares of vineyards were grubbed up and replaced with olives or almonds after state subsidy-backed mass production of cheap sherry ended with Spain\u2019s entry into the EU<\/a> in 1986, leaving the region with an epic hangover.<\/p>\n

Aveledo rejoices in the trade\u2019s new shoots of growth. \u201cLook how beautiful it is,\u201d she said, admiring rows of new vines. \u201cThat,\u201d she added, pointing to a freshly ploughed field, \u201cwill soon be a vineyard again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The best wines for a New Year\u2019s Eve party \u2014 chosen by our critic<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

In Barbadillo\u2019s bodegas, built around a former bishop\u2019s palace in Sanlucar\u2019s historic quarter, Tim Holt, the company\u2019s international area director, said: \u201cIn the industry as a whole the seasoning business is actually very, very significant.\u201d <\/p>\n

Holt, the last in a long line of the city\u2019s resident British sherry merchants, added: \u201cThe boom is because the premium whisky sector has grown a lot, and part of being a premium malt is having your whisky aged in sherry-seasoned casks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Major sherry houses are now producing huge volumes of wine destined specifically for cask seasoning rather than bottled export. <\/p>\n

C\u00e9sar Salda\u00f1a, the president of the sherry region\u2019s regulating body, said: \u201cCurrently, there are approximately 340,000 500-litre casks in Jerez undergoing the ageing process for sherry wine. Roughly one third of that quantity are barrels being seasoned for later sale to distilleries.\u201d <\/p>\n

Those figures include only casks certified by the regulatory body. Industry sources suggest that at least 40 per cent of all sherry produced may be involved in the cask trade.<\/p>\n

Holt shows some of Barbadillo\u2019s several thousand new oak casks. Purpose-built for seasoning, they are full of sherry and stamped with the names of the Scotch producers that own them. \u201cThree years ago Barbadillo had nothing in the seasoning sector, and, although it will remain only a supporting part of our business, it is growing,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Holt pointed out that the rise of the sherry-seasoned cask trade had also revived local cooperages, boosted oak imports and increased business for transport firms moving thousands of casks a year to Scotland.<\/p>\n

At Jerez, the home of fino sherry, the rival to coastal Sanlucar\u2019s sea-influenced manzanilla variety, the house of Gonzalez Byass is heavily engaged in the whisky cask business.<\/p>\n

It is not without challenges. Successive years of drought prompted many farmers recently to turn from vine to olive cultivation, causing a shortage of grapes and an increase in their price. Salvador Chirino, the company\u2019s cask manager, said: \u201cWe have had very bad harvests the last four years. By replanting vineyards we are ensuring that we have all the wine we need for sherry for drinking and also for seasoning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del R\u00edo y Gonz\u00e1lez-Gordon pointed to the long history of ageing whisky in sherry casks, a practice well established by the late 19th century. Sherry was then exported in vast quantities from Spain to Britain in large oak casks known as butts. Once emptied in British ports, these casks were sold on cheaply to Scottish distillers, who found them ideal for maturing spirits.<\/p>\n

A receipt from the company archive shows a payment made to the sherry producer in 1915 for \u00a350 for casks from Dalmore Distillery, for which it now seasons casks. \u201cYou can see the origin of what nowadays is a big business,\u201d said del R\u00edo y Gonz\u00e1lez-Gordon. <\/p>\n

\"Real<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, however, Spanish rules stipulated sherry had to be bottled in Spain and so no more casks were shipped. Chirino said: \u201cSome big distilleries wanted to continue with casks and so purpose-built ones were made in Spain and seasoned here and that\u2019s how it began.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scarce old casks, maybe 40 or 50 years old, are still massively coveted by the distillers but obviously new purpose-built ones are the main type sold. Both are good, with different profiles of flavour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new casks are seasoned with sherry at least two years old for a period of at least a year. They are certified with information about the type of oak, the wine, the cooperage and the length of the seasoning period. The price of a 500-litre cask before seasoning costs about \u20ac900 but its value can increase up to thousands of euros, depending on the type of sherry used. <\/p>\n

Salda\u00f1a said the regulatory body had tightened control over the cask trade because \u201coften barrels that had never actually contained genuine sherry wine were offered as \u2018sherry casks\u2019\u201d. He hopes that new EU legislation will confer protected status on the sherry region\u2019s casks. <\/p>\n

Holt noted that 90 per cent of Barbadillo\u2019s cask seasoning was done with oloroso sherry \u201cas it gives more of a footprint of the sherry flavour\u201d. He added: \u201cIt\u2019s also about leaching out some of the more aggressive tannins and acids from the cask\u2019s wood. So by the time it gets to whisky you get a softer, rounder feel, not just because of the influence of the oloroso, but as the wood has been mellowed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whisky aged in old sherry casks that contained rare old varieties such as Gonzalez Byass\u2019s Matusalem or Apostoles wines can fetch eye-popping prices. Dalmore produced a collection of three miniature bottles of whisky matured in such casks that sold for \u00a315,000. The distiller and the sherry maker have collaborated on an unusual project \u2013\u2014 shipping whisky from Scotland to Jerez to age it in the bodega under a Scotch label called Nomad. <\/p>\n

\"Gonzalez<\/p>\n

But what happens to all the sherry used in the process? Its destiny after seasoning has become mildly controversial because some unscrupulous producers are suspected of recycling it clandestinely for making wine. <\/p>\n

Chirino said: \u201cWe keep it apart from our drinking sherry in different warehouses. We can re-use it to season new batches, but we need to refresh them with maybe 25 per cent new wine to get rid of the oak flavour and to balance it. Once we decide it\u2019s not useful any more, we get rid of it. For example, selling it for vinegar production.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the fortunes of Jerez are once again tied to Scotland. But could the boom go bust? Holt said: \u201cThere is a bit of a concern now that single malt whisky sales have cooled globally. But for many distillers it\u2019s just business as usual because they\u2019re not thinking about today. They\u2019re thinking about where they\u2019re going to be in 12 years\u2019 time.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the scion of one of Spain\u2019s sherry dynasties, there is a \u201cdelicious historic irony\u201d about the Scots…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-657014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115789238717988441","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}