Sweet or
special wines
Fortified and sherry wines — fino, amontillado, oloroso and palo cortado — and other sweet or special styles. They are wines with biological or oxidative ageing and a tradition of their own, which is why we list them in a separate section from our natural and biodynamic catalogue.
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What are sweet or special wines?
These are wines made from fresh grapes or must which, during or after winemaking, undergo treatments that make them distinctive: not only for the grape variety, but for the technique. They can be obtained in four ways:
- By concentrating the sugar in the grapes: through over-ripening on the vine, allowing noble rot to develop, or partially drying them in the sun.
- By raising the sugar or alcohol of the must: adding wine spirit or must before, during or after fermentation.
- Through ageing specific to each type of wine (biological, oxidative, solera systems…), which gives them their own aromas and flavours.
- By adding natural substances that provide their characteristic colour and finish.
Each type and each region has its own technology, defined by traditional or local rules. Broadly speaking, sweet wines fall into three families:
- VDN (natural sweet wine) — fermentation starts and, at the desired moment, is stopped by adding wine spirit.
- VDL (liqueur wine) — fermentation may or may not begin, but wine spirit is added straight away.
- VND (naturally sweet wine) — thanks to its sugar potential, it ferments up to the limit the yeasts can tolerate, leaving a high level of residual sugar.
Fortified (generoso) wines are those with a high alcohol content, from 15 % vol. upwards, and they can be dry, off-dry or sweet. This category includes the wines of Jerez, Montilla-Moriles, Port, Madeira, rancios and Banyuls, among others.
VOS and VORS: certified age
Among the sherries of Jerez, the initials VOS (Vinum Optimum Signatum) and VORS (Vinum Optimum Rare Signatum) mean that the Consejo Regulador certifies a minimum average age of 20 and 30 years respectively. In this section you will find two TABAJETE VORS: the Oloroso and the Palo Cortado.