Fino

What fino is

Fino is a dry sherry made from Palomino and fortified to 15 percent alcohol so that a layer of yeast can live on its surface. That layer, called flor, sits between the wine and the air inside a partially filled butt. It eats glycerol and any residual sugar, blocks oxidation, and produces the acetaldehyde notes that define the style: green almond, fresh bread, sea breeze.

The wine stays bone-pale because no oxygen reaches it. Acidity reads sharper than the chemistry suggests, because flor strips out the buffering compounds that round a still wine off. A good fino is leaner than almost any white wine on the market.

Where it comes from

The denominación covers Jerez de la Frontera and El Puerto de Santa María. Sanlúcar de Barrameda makes the same wine under a different name, manzanilla, because the cooler Atlantic climate grows a thicker flor and shifts the taste toward salt and chamomile. Inland fino from Jerez tends to feel rounder and a touch warmer.

Producers worth tracking from a UK perspective include Equipo Navazos, Valdespino, Tio Pepe and Lustau. The London trade has rebuilt sherry’s reputation since around 2010, with help from writers like Peter Liem and Sarah Jane Evans MW.

Why it spoils so fast

Once you pull the cork, oxygen does the work flor used to block. The bottle drops off within three to six weeks even refrigerated, and by week eight the wine is no longer fino but a dull oxidative middle-thing. Half-bottles solve this. So does drinking the whole 750 in one sitting with friends and salted almonds.

How to serve it

Six to eight degrees Celsius, in a regular white wine glass rather than the tiny copita that traps aroma. Pair with jamón ibérico, fried whitebait, manchego, raw oysters or aged castelvetrano olives. The wine reads as a savoury food partner, not as an aperitif curiosity. The UK on-trade has been arguing this since at least 2015, and the data on by-the-glass pours backs them up.