When Spain joined the EU it was required to bring spanish wine law into line with EU law. This resulted in the classification of sherry as a “liqueur wine”, with a legal minium alcohol content of 15%.

This gave and continues to give rise to two serious problems for the trade.

1. Quality: Flor eats up alcohol, so even though Finos and Manzanillas are fortified to about 15% to start with, this often comes down to 14% and even lower after years of ageing under flor. After ageing the wines are often perfect as they are, but cannot be sold as Sherry until they have been re-fortified to 15%. This unnessesary addition of alcohol can unbalance the wine, damaging its quality and also deny Fino and Manzanilla the abililty to compete directly with “light” wines which sometimes have alcohol levels approaching 15%.

2. Tax: The duty on wine in the UK, Sherry’s largest market, is banded with one watershed being 15%. Duty on wines above 15% is significantly higher than duty on “light” wines, directly affecting the price of Sherry on the shelf. Duty on a 15% Fino is nearly a third more than on a 14% “light” wine. Labeling and tax is also affected in the States, and no doubt in a whole lot of other jurisdictions. Pretty unfair if you ask me.

Finally, 22 years after Spain joined the EU it seems something is being done. I’m not really sure I should be surprised that it’s taken so long. For all the synergies the European project is supposed to bring, one thing it does bring is an enourmous pile of red tape for anyone trying to do anything. Still, is TWO decades not a bit long?

Story here in the Diario de Jerez (in Spanish).

They are also going to try and get the rules for PX changed so that it doesn’t even need fortification, with minimum alcohol as low as 12%.