Solera
Encyclopedia
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
, beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
, vinegar
Vinegar
Vinegar is a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. Slow methods generally are used with traditional...
, and brandy
Brandy
Brandy is a spirit produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35%–60% alcohol by volume and is typically taken as an after-dinner drink...
, by fractional blending in such a way that the finished product is a mixture of ages, with the average age gradually increasing as the process continues over many years. A solera is literally the set of barrels or other containers used in the process. Products which are often solera aged include Sherry
Sherry
Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez , Spain. In Spanish, it is called vino de Jerez....
, Madeira
Madeira wine
Madeira is a fortified Portuguese wine made in the Madeira Islands. Some wines produced in small quantities in California and Texas are also referred to as "Madeira", or "Madera", although those wines do not conform to the EU PDO regulations...
, Port wine
Port wine
Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties...
, Marsala
Marsala wine
Marsala is a wine produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala wine first received Denominazione di Origine Controllata status in 1969....
, Mavrodafni
Mavrodafni
Mavrodafni is both a black wine grape indigenous to the Achaia region in Northern Peloponnese, Greece, and the sweet, fortified wine produced from it.-Winemaking:...
, Muscat, and Muscadelle
Muscadelle
Muscadelle is a white wine grape variety. It has a simple aroma of grape juice and raisins like grapes of the Muscat family of grapes, but it is unrelated....
wines; Balsamic
Balsamic vinegar
Balsamic vinegar is a condiment originating from Italy.The original traditional product , made from a reduction of cooked white Trebbiano grape juice and not a vinegar in the usual sense, has been made in Modena and Reggio Emilia since the Middle Ages: the production of the balsamic vinegar is...
, Commandaria
Commandaria
Commandaria is an amber-coloured sweet dessert wine made in the Commandaria region of Cyprus on the foothills of the Troödos mountains. Commandaria is made from sun-dried grapes of the varieties Xynisteri and Mavro. While often a fortified wine, through its production method it often reaches high...
, and Sherry
Sherry Vinegar
Sherry vinegar is a gourmet wine vinegar made from Sherry. It is produced in the Spanish province of Cádiz and inside the triangular area between the city of Jerez de la Frontera and towns of Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María, known as the "sherry triangle".To be called vinagre de...
vinegars; Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
brandy; and rum
Rum
Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels...
s.
Solera process
In the solera process, a succession of containers are filled with the product over a series of equal aging intervals (usually a year). One container is filled for each interval. At the end of the interval after the last container is filled, the oldest container in the solera is tapped for part of its content, which is bottled. Then that container is refilled from the next oldest container, and that one in succession from the second-oldest, down to the youngest container, which is refilled with new product. This procedure is repeated at the end of each aging interval. The transferred product mixes with the older product in the next barrel.No container is ever drained, so some of the earlier product always remains in each container. This remnant diminishes to a tiny level, but there can be significant traces of product much older than the average, depending on the transfer fraction. In theory traces of the very first product placed in the solera may be present even after 50 or 100 cycles.
Aging
The age of product from the first bottling is the number of containers times the aging interval. As the solera matures, the average age of product asymptotically approaches the difference between the number of containers (K) and the fraction of a container transferred or bottled (α), divided by the fraction of a container which is transferred or bottled {(K-α)/α}.For instance, suppose the solera consists of four barrels of wine, and half of each barrel is transferred once a year. At the end of the fourth year (and each subsequent year), half the fourth barrel is bottled. This first bottling is aged four years. The second bottling will be half four years old and half five years old (the wine left in the last barrel at the previous cycle), for an average age of four and a half years. The third bottling will be: one fourth wine that was six years in the fourth barrel, one fourth wine that was four years in the third barrel and one year in the fourth barrel, one fourth that was three years in the third barrel and two years in the fourth barrel, and one fourth that was two years in the second barrel, one year in the third, and one year in the fourth: average age five years. After 20 years, the output of the solera would be a mix of wine from 4 to 20 years old, averaging slightly under 7 years. The average age asymptotically converges on seven years as the solera continues.
Solera production
The output of the solera is the fraction of the last container taken off for bottling each cycle. The amount of product tied up in the solera is usually many times larger than the production. This means that a solera is a very large capital investment for a winemaker. If done with actual barrels, the producer may have several soleras running in parallel. For a small producer, a solera may be the largest capital investment, and a valuable asset to be passed down to descendants.Wine produced from a solera cannot formally have a vintage date because it is a blend of vintages from many years. However, some bottlings are labeled with an age for marketing reasons. It is unclear whether such age indications denotes the average age, or the age of the oldest batch.
Solera in different countries
This process is known as solera in Spanish, and was developed by the producers of sherry. In a Spanish sherry solera, the vintner may transfer about a third of each barrel a year. A solero sherry has to be at least three years old when bottled.In Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, where Marsala wine is made, the system is called in perpetuum.
Solera vinification is used in the making of Mavrodafni
Mavrodafni
Mavrodafni is both a black wine grape indigenous to the Achaia region in Northern Peloponnese, Greece, and the sweet, fortified wine produced from it.-Winemaking:...
("Black Laurel"), a fortified red dessert wine made in the Northern Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Exceptional Mavrodafni vintages are released every 20 or 30 years: they are of minimal availability and highly expensive.
Vintners in Rutherglen, Australia
Rutherglen, Victoria
Rutherglen is a small town in north-eastern Victoria, Australia, near the Murray River border with New South Wales. The town was named after the Scottish town of Rutherglen which lies just outside Glasgow...
produce fortified muscat-style and Tokay
Tokaji
Tokaji is the name of the wines from the region of Tokaj-Hegyalja in Hungary and Slovakia. The name Tokaji is used for labeling wines from this wine district. This region is noted for its sweet wines made from grapes affected by noble rot, a style of wine which has a long history in this region...
-style wines using the solera process.
Glenfiddich
Glenfiddich
The Glenfiddich Distillery is a Speyside single malt Scotch whisky distillery owned by William Grant & Sons in Dufftown, Scotland. Glenfiddich means ‘Valley of the deer’ in Gaelic, hence the presence of a deer symbol on Glenfiddich bottles.- History :...
, a Speyside
Speyside
Speyside can refer to:* Strathspey, Scotland, the famous whisky producing region by the River Spey** Speyside single malts, the type of whisky produced in Strathspey* Speyside, Trinidad and Tobago in Trinidad and Tobago...
distillery in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
has a 15 year old whisky
Whisky
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn...
that uses a process that is similar to the solera process. The whisky is labelled as their "15 year old single malt Scotch Whisky".
In France some producers use the Perpétuelle method to blend base wines for Champagne across the years for Non Vintage Champagne such as Francis Boulard Cuvée Petraea.
Possible solera abuse
ItalianItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
labeling laws permit blended vinegar to be labeled with the age of the oldest vinegar in the blend. Some balsamic vinegar producers have established solera aging facilities, and claimed the age of the entire solera as the age of the vinegar produced. In the case of the more strictly-controlled and more expensive vinegars, such as aceto balsamico tradizionale
Balsamic vinegar
Balsamic vinegar is a condiment originating from Italy.The original traditional product , made from a reduction of cooked white Trebbiano grape juice and not a vinegar in the usual sense, has been made in Modena and Reggio Emilia since the Middle Ages: the production of the balsamic vinegar is...
, this labeling practice is not permitted.