What is the "Sherry Flor?"

The sherry flor is not a flower at all, but is a rather repulsive-looking film of yeast cells that covers the surface of the must in most of the butts some two months after the vintage, though often it does not appear until the following April or May. Some bodegas keep one or two butts of must with glass ends which show the development of flor very clearly.

The growth of the film is rapid. A month after it first appears, it is already about an eighth of an inch thick. It is almost pure white in color and is a mass of irregular wrinkles. In fact it looks just like farmhouse cream cheese. It does not taste like that, though. If you take a bit out and try it, it tastes bitter, yeasty, and very odd.

Its arrival is spontaneous and natural. It can very easily be killed but can never be induced to grow naturally on the surface of a wine where it has not appeared of its own accord. Imitators of sherry have taken specimens of flor to South Africa, Australia, and California. With great difficulty, it has been kept alive and has been induced to grow on the surface of alien wines, but the effect has never been the same.

Flor only develops naturally in Spain, in the Jura, and, it is said, in the Caucasus. It helps very materially to determine the character of the wine, and Manuel Gonzalez Gordon has likened flor in sherry to boldness in children: the weaker they are to begin with, the more virulently does it act.

Flor only develops naturally in Spain, in the Jura, and, it is said, in the Caucasus. It helps very materially to determine the character of the wine, and Manuel Gonzalez Gordon has likened flor in sherry to boldness in children...