The sherry triangle capital — Fino, Oloroso, PX, and the mother city of flamenco, the Royal Equestrian School, and the Sherry Wine Route
Jerez de la Frontera is the capital of the sherry world — the city whose name (via its Arabic name Sherish, then the English 'Sherry') gave the world's most complex fortified wine its name. The bodega district south of the old city holds Gonzalez Byass (Tío Pepe), Lustau, Williams & Humbert, and Domecq — some of the largest and most historic wine producers in Europe, in ancient cathedral-like storage buildings (naves) filled with the solera system's stacked barrels. Jerez also has a legitimate claim to being the birthplace of flamenco: the Gypsy (Gitano) community in the Santiago and San Migu…
Jerez is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Spain — there is evidence of Phoenician settlement from the 9th century BCE. The city's name derives from the Moorish 'Sherish' (itself from Latin 'Caesaris' — Caesar's city); the 'de la Frontera' suffix dates from the Reconquista, when the city sat on the border between the Christian and Moorish kingdoms. Wine production in the region is documented from Roman times (Columella, the 1st-century CE agricultural writer, was born nearby and described the local viticulture). The sherry trade with England developed in the 16th century unde…