Winemaker Ana Cabestrero Ortega took care of this fresh, dry sherry Fino. Sherry has matured on American oak for more than 4 years under full flower formation. This Fino sherry is light straw yellow in color, has nice notes of roasted nuts (almond) on the nose, and is tight in the mouth with fresh acids, almond bitters and toast.

The sherry fits well with pata negra or Serrano ham, olives, new herring and sushi. It is an ‘En Rama’ Fino, bottled without sulfites and very lightly filtered. Note the bottling date on the back of the label. Drink within 2 years after bottling date and within 3 days after opening the bottle.

Fun fact: the label shows the hunt of the nobility for the fox (Maestro Sierra). The backlabel of each bottle states the month and year of bottling. This is especially important with the Fino, freshness is very important here.

More than a century ago there was a ‘cooper’ named Jose Antonio Sierra, who, thanks to his barrel workshop in the La Merced district of Jerez, was very knowledgeable about the specific craft of Sherry wine. He made the large oak barrels where the bodegas in the area let their Sherry mature. Jose was known as an excellent cooper, but he had a dream: make sherry himself. That was certainly not common in 1830. The bodegas were in the hands of some noble ‘Sherry families’. But Jose persevered and founded a modest bodega in the historic center of the town of Jerez de la Frontera. Bodega El Maestro Sierra still stands here today, charming, discreet and proud. The time that has passed has only confirmed the skills of this barrel maker. Some of its barrels (American oak barrels specifically for making sherry) are almost 200 years old. They keep his carved signature and contain the best 100-year-old wines of the bodega.

Today, El Maestro Sierra combines traditional winemaking with a traditional character. The bodega is still in family ownership and that family remains the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry DO, the governing body to which the bodega belongs, maturing, bottling and exporting. The Bodega matures its wines in the best barrels of American oak, in the traditional way via the solera system in its own cellars.