A terrace at Bajo de Guía in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. The sun drops over the Doñana mouth of the Guadalquivir, a steaming dish of langostinos sits on the table, and in your glass is an ice-cold manzanilla sherry that smells of sea, chamomile and freshly baked bread. This is not an aperitif from a dusty bottle in a grandmother’s liqueur cabinet. This is a living, biologically aged white wine that may only originate here.
What is Manzanilla? A separate DOP for Sanlúcar
Manzanilla is a biologically aged sherry from 100% Palomino Fino, bottled at around 15% alcohol, that may only be aged in bodegas within the municipal boundaries of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on the Atlantic coast of the province of Cádiz. Since 1964 Manzanilla has had its own Denominación de Origen under the name Manzanilla-Sanlúcar de Barrameda, legally separate from the DO Jerez-Xérès-Sherry.
The grapes may come from the wider Marco de Jerez, but the entire biological aging under flor must take place in a Sanlúcar bodega. Move a butt to Jerez or El Puerto de Santa María and the wine loses the right to the Manzanilla name and becomes a Fino. Same butt, same wine, different postal code, different style.
In 2021 the DOP gained its own Comisión de la Manzanilla with an independent budget and rules. The reform, which came into force in October 2022, separated Manzanilla further from Jerez at the governance level and gave the style room to build out its own identity. In 2023 the maximum residual sugar was lowered from five to four grams per liter and Palomino Fino (locally also Listán Blanco) was formally fixed as the only permitted grape.
Why only Sanlúcar? Sea, humidity, year-round flor
Sanlúcar sits at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, directly opposite the Doñana national park. The town gets year-round westerly winds from the Atlantic, the poniente. That wind brings humidity and relatively cool air, even in July and August.
The result: relative humidity inside a Sanlúcar bodega stays above 70% year-round, and the temperature swings far less than inland. In Jerez de la Frontera, just fifteen kilometers further from the coast, the mercury moves much wider in summer and winter. Flor, the white yeast veil that floats on top of fino and manzanilla, suffers in the hot summer and cold winter and grows thinner there.
In Sanlúcar that flor stays thick and active all year. The bodegas here are deliberately built with thick walls, high roofs and arcades facing southwest, so the sea wind can move through the rows of butts. The result is a wine with more biological work per year, a thicker protective layer against oxygen, and a more pronounced salty, bready, chamomile note than an average fino from Jerez.
Flavour profile: saltier, fresher, full of chamomile
Manzanilla is often described as the saltiest sherry, and that is not marketing. The year-round active flor consumes almost all residual sugar and glycerol, produces acetaldehyde, and leaves the wine bone-dry and pungent. On top of that come aromas you rarely find as concentrated in a Jerez fino:
- Chamomile (in Spanish manzanilla, possibly the origin of the name) and dried flowers
- Iodine and sea, salty sea air, oyster
- Fresh bread and dough, yeast, flour
- Green almond, almond skin, a hint of bitter herbs
- Lemon zest and green apple in young sacas
In the glass a good Manzanilla is pale straw-yellow with green reflections. On the palate it is sharply dry, with strikingly low viscosity (the flor has eaten the glycerol) and a saline, almost biting finish that begs for another sip. Pour it cold, between 6 and 9 degrees Celsius, in a white wine glass or in the slim Sanlúcar tradition the catavinos or even a long tulipa.
Manzanilla Pasada: the bridge to amontillado
Not every Manzanilla stays young and pale. After seven or more years in the criadera-solera the flor begins to weaken, often because saca frequency is reduced and the yeast layer receives less fresh material. The wine partly comes into contact with oxygen and develops oxidative traits, while the saline, biologically aged foundation remains.
That is Manzanilla Pasada: the in-between category between fresh Manzanilla Fina and fully oxidative Amontillado. The 2021 reform locked in a minimum of seven years aging for the Pasada designation and finally gave bodegas a formal framework to bottle this style separately.
A good Pasada is golden yellow, smells of toasted nuts, candied bitter orange peel and salty caramel, and still keeps that sea note you do not find in Amontillado from Jerez. Known examples: Solear Pasada en Rama by Barbadillo, Pastora by Barbadillo (a resurrection of one of the earliest commercial Manzanilla bottlings), and the Manzanilla Pasada Bota Punta from the La Bota series by Equipo Navazos.
En rama: the saca cycle and the seasons
A standard Manzanilla is filtered and cold-stabilised before bottling. That makes the wine clear and shelf-stable, but it also strips out part of the aromas built up by the flor. En rama (“raw” or “from the cask”) means the wine is barely or not at all filtered, and that cold stabilisation is skipped.
The 2021 reform turned en rama into a protected mention: a wine carrying that designation may not have undergone classic filtration or cold stabilisation. Since then the term is legally framed instead of a freely interpretable marketing word.
Manzanilla en rama is traditionally released in four sacas per year, one per season: spring, summer, autumn and winter. The flor is differently thick and active in each season, so each saca tastes different. Spring is often the most floral, autumn the most saline-yeasty, winter the most structured. Barbadillo is regarded as the pioneer of seasonal en rama bottlings under the Solear en Rama label. La Gitana and Equipo Navazos developed their own editions.
Do not store an en rama bottle longer than four or five days in the fridge after opening, ideally in a half bottle. Once opened, oxygen is inside, and it is precisely the absence of oxygen that defines the style.
Producers to know
The Manzanilla world is carried by a handful of historic bodegas that each have their own criadera architecture and house style.
- Bodegas Hidalgo-La Gitana (eighteenth-century house in Sanlúcar). The La Gitana Manzanilla, with the gypsy woman on the label, is internationally the standard reference for fresh, floral Manzanilla in the entry-level segment.
- Bodegas Barbadillo (nineteenth-century house). The second great house, today owner of an enormous bodega complex in Sanlúcar. The Solear Manzanilla and the seasonal en rama editions are benchmark. Barbadillo is regarded as a pioneer of the earliest commercial Manzanilla bottlings.
- Hijos de Rainera Pérez Marín, La Guita (nineteenth-century house). Part of Grupo Estévez (Valdespino, Marqués del Real Tesoro). La Guita is one of the best-selling Manzanillas in Spain and uses primarily grapes from the Miraflores pago.
- Bodegas Argüeso (nineteenth-century house). The San León Manzanilla and the Reserva Familiar are favourites among enthusiasts for their young, pungent style with a pronounced saline cut.
- Equipo Navazos (founded by a group of sherry obsessives around Jesús Barquín and Eduardo Ojeda). Not a classic bodega but selectors who hunt down old Sanlúcar soleras and bottle individual butts under the label La Bota de Manzanilla with numbered editions. La Bota is internationally seen as the fine wine reference within sherry.
Pairing and the Sanlúcar tradition
In Sanlúcar Manzanilla is not a wine for special occasions, it is the drink, on the table almost year-round. The canonical pairing are the world-famous langostinos de Sanlúcar, locally caught red prawns boiled in salted water and peeled by hand. The saline, brioche-like Manzanilla and the sweet-saline prawn flesh form the kind of marriage that can justify an entire wine style.
Manzanilla also works exceptionally well with:
- Pescaíto frito, fried small fish (boquerones, salmonetes, chocos)
- Manzanilla olives, anchovies, capers, salmorejo
- Fresh oysters, ceviche, tartare of white fish
- Iberico ham (jamón ibérico de bellota), especially with leaner slices
- Surprisingly good with sushi and sashimi, especially nigiri of white fish and prawn, Lustau publishes an entire pairing guide on the subject
- Light rice dishes, such as an arroz with gambas or a white paella
Sanlúcar celebrates its wine each year at the Feria de la Manzanilla, late May or early June on the Avenida Calzada Duquesa Isabel. The feria received its official name in 1972 and has since been the great town festival where every caseta presses a Manzanilla into your hand. Directly after, in August, come the Carreras de Caballos de Sanlúcar, horse races on the beach at low tide, held continuously since 1845 and among the oldest organised horse races in Europe. Anyone who happens to be in Sanlúcar in August sees pure-bred Andalusians thunder across the sand while the entire coastline holds a glass of Manzanilla.
The best part of all this: the price. Compared with other classic wine styles, Manzanilla remains strikingly accessible, even for international top references like La Gitana or Solear. For the complexity, craft and centuries of history in every glass, Manzanilla remains one of the most underrated bargains in the entire wine world.
Sources
- Consejo Regulador de Manzanilla, “La D.O.”, manzanilla.org/la-d-o/
- Sherry Notes, “Types of Sherry: Manzanilla”, sherrynotes.com/sherry-wine-types/types-of-sherry-manzanilla/
- Lustau, “All you need to know about Manzanilla de Sanlúcar”, lustau.es/en/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-manzanilla-de-sanlucar/
- Court of Master Sommeliers, “Manzanilla Regulations 2023”, courtofmastersommeliers.org/learning-resources/manzanilla-regulations-2023/
- Bodegas Barbadillo, “100th edition of the seasonal bottlings”, barbadillo.com/en/barbadillo-celebrates-the-100th-edition-of-the-seasonal-bottlings/
- Foods & Wines from Spain, “The biological blends of Fino and Manzanilla sherry wines”, foodswinesfromspain.com/en/wine/articles/2020/may/the-biological-blends-of-fino-and-manzanilla-sherry-wines
- Equipo Navazos, “Bota NO 22 Manzanilla Navazos”, equiponavazos.com/en/botan22manzanillanavazos/
- El Debate, “Primeras carreras de caballos en 1845 en Sanlúcar”, eldebate.com/espana/andalucia/cadiz/20250803/primeras-carreras-caballos-1845-cuando-estilo-ingles-apodero-sanlucar_322483.html
- Kate’s Travel Tips, “Everything you need to know about Sanlúcar’s Feria de la Manzanilla”, katestraveltips.com/2017/05/26/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sanlucars-feria-de-la-manzanilla/
- Lustau, “Sushi with Manzanilla”, lustau.es/en/pairings/sushi-with-manzanilla/