The tasting menu at Aponiente functions as an extended sherry pairing experience, with chef Angel Leon's marine courses matched to an expert-selected Jerez DO progression. The full pairing menu is the most structured sherry-with-food experience in the Marco de Jerez.
Address: Calle Francisco Cossi Ochoa s/n, 11500 El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain, Jerez & Sherry
A hands-on workshop teaching the venencia technique: extracting sherry from the barrel with the traditional silver and whalebone tool and pouring into a copita from height without spillage. Conducted at the Consejo Regulador by a practising capataz de bodega.
A limited harvest participation programme at Gonzalez Byass during the September Vendimia, in which guests join the bodega team in the Macharnudo vineyard for the Palomino Fino pick. The day concludes with a must tasting and bodega dinner.
Bodegas Barbadillo runs a structured comparison session contrasting the seasonal En Rama edition of Solear Manzanilla directly against the year-round filtered version from the same solera. The session is guided by a Barbadillo winemaker and focuses on the role of filtration, oxygen contact and bottling season.
A hands-on blending workshop at Bodegas Lustau where participants draw wine from different scales of the criadera and solera system and assemble their own blend. Led by a Lustau cellar master; each participant takes home a labelled bottle of their custom blend.
The annual Jerez harvest festival held in early September centres on the Pisada de la Uva ceremony: barefoot treading of the first Palomino Fino grapes in the traditional lagares at the Gonzalez Byass bodega. Open-air events, flamenco performances and free sherry tastings run across the historic centre for several days.
The ancient barefoot grape-treading ritual performed at the Gonzalez Byass bodega at the start of the Vendimia. Participants in traditional Jota costumes tread Palomino Fino grapes in the lagar to produce the first must of the harvest. A highlight of the Jerez sherry calendar and an internationally attended ritual.
