Twelve Finos, ten cheeses, and one yeast layer that changes everything

Twelve Finos lined up in a single session — at The Secret Sherry Society that’s not excess but the premise. A Fino tasting of this scale is built to show what a single glass hides.

On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, The Secret Sherry Society held the second edition of its ‘Sherry types dive deep’ series at Vindict — the Amsterdam wine bar of sommelier and Sherry enthusiast Jan-Jaap Altenburg. The subject was Fino. More precisely: Flor, the yeast layer that makes Fino what it is. I couldn’t be there myself this time — a missed opportunity I hope to make up for at the next edition — but the story is worth sharing.

What Flor actually does

If you’ve ever wondered why Fino tastes like nothing else in the fortified wine world, Flor is the answer. It’s a living film of yeast cells that forms naturally on the wine’s surface in the barrel, shielding it from oxygen and driving its distinctive character — the salinity, the dry nuttiness, the strange, lean precision that keeps people reaching for the glass.

According to founders Karel Klosse and Marten Meijboom, the evening was built around making that process visible. It opened with still wines without Flor — a reference point that signals what’s missing before the contrast lands. From there, Finos from multiple Sherry towns followed: Jerez, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, El Puerto de Santa María. The influence of the solera system, barrel ageing, and bottle ageing played out across twelve glasses.

That’s the point of pouring twelve. One or two Finos and you leave with impressions. Twelve and the variables come into focus — how location shifts the profile, how time under Flor compresses or opens the wine, why a Fino from Sanlúcar drinks differently from one made fifteen kilometres inland. The Secret Sherry Society Fino tasting format works precisely because it doesn’t hedge.

Betty Koster and the case against dessert wine with cheese

The cheese came courtesy of Betty Koster of Fromagerie L’Amuse, who brought ten selections and a position she’s been arguing for years.

“I’ve personally been fighting for years against the cliché that you must drink dessert wine with cheese,” she said. “The fresh, elegant complexity of dry Sherry adds so much to a cheese that deserves its own stage.”

The pairing also holds up on the page. Aged, salt-forward Dutch cheeses alongside Fino isn’t surprising once you think about it — the umami in the cheese picks up the nutty, slightly bitter register of the wine in a way sweetness would flatten. Koster’s point: this pairing isn’t experimental. It’s just underused.

The choice to focus on Dutch cheeses specifically — not Manchego, not Comté — was deliberate. Koster wants to make the case that Dutch cheese culture belongs in the same conversation as the wines it’s served with.

One type, full depth

The concept behind The Secret Sherry Society is straightforward: one Sherry type per event, examined as thoroughly as the format allows. “This way we can put multiple producers side by side and really dig into the nuances and particularities of each type,” said Marten Meijboom.

Karel Klosse put it this way: “I’m happy that we could offer our guests something genuinely special. By zooming in on one point, we can go deep and uncover very specific nuances. A pursuit for the more advanced.”

‘More advanced’ is fair — but it shouldn’t be a barrier. Anyone who knows Fino only as a summer aperitif at a terrace in Jerez will come away from an evening like this with a different understanding. Not as a convert. Just as someone who gets why Fino deserves its own category.

Next edition

The Secret Sherry Society is continuing this format. The next edition is already in the works — and one I hope to attend in person. Contact and registration via thesecretsherrysociety.com.

Photos: Nicky Regelink