This lighter style sherry boasts creamy flavors of caramel, butterscotch and hazelnut.
Production Notes
Winemakers Bill Anderson and Marta Kraftzeck produce our Château Julien Carmel Cream Sherry in traditional Spanish Solera style. A “Solera” is used to age sherry by stacking barrels on top of one another, allowing sherry of several vintages to blend together over time. Each year sherry is drawn from the bottom barrel for bottling, and is replaced with sherry from the barrel above it. The newest vintage is then added to the top barrel for aging. This system is designed to smooth out the differences between vintage years, ensuring a
consistent, well-aged sherry year after year. The Château Julien Carmel Cream Sherry is aged in a 30 year old American cherry oak barrel Solera, which was purchased when the winery first opened in 1982. Each year we bottle 200 cases from the solera by drawing off of the bottom barrel only, limiting the removal to only a third of its contents.
We produce our sherry primarily from Palomino grapes, with a small blend of Tokay grapes. Prior to aging, it is fortified with brandy and is therefore much higher in alcohol than most table wines.
Because this sherry is so old and special, we cannot bottle it through the normal bottling process. We hand fill each bottle, cork and capsule it with a portable spinner, and then apply the label by hand. Therefore, you may find some simple imperfections with these special bottles. This lighter style sherry boasts creamy flavors of caramel, butterscotch and hazelnut.
