Il method Soleras or "Solera and criaderas"
Il method Soleras, also said more precisely "Solera and criaderas"Is the most famous method of maturity for wines fortified. It owes its fame to the fact that it is used for the production of Jerez, but in reality it is also used for other fortified wines, such as the Marsala. The method Soleras it is also said "dynamic aging”And its advantage consists in guaranteeing the constant quality of the product over time. Indeed the maturation and evolution of fortified wines can last for many, often tens of years. 
In this long period of maturation the complex and extraordinary aromatic qualities develop which make these wines absolutely unique. The Soleras method allows you to mix, pour and divide into several barrels batches of wine that have in common the moment of their elaboration, guaranteeing uniformity in the organoleptic properties of the wine.
A brief history of the Soleras method
It is believed that the Soleras method of dynamic aging is born in Sanlucar de Barrameda, locality close to Jerez, in the second part of the XVIII century, probably around 1760. Before its development, all sherry they were bottled like vintages or vintage wines. Initially it was a matter of simply mixing wine from the previous harvest (called wine old) with the new production, but then gradually developed into a more complex blending system of statically aged wines of different ages. The system "Solera and criaderas”As we know it today dates back to the nineteenth century and its final development coincides with the development of the use of flower, while for i oxidative wines (in style Oloroso) the Soleras system began to be used a few years later. Some Historic Soleras dating back to end from the 700s are still in operation, even if in any case none of the original barrels can have survived, being a dynamic system that also involves the progressive rehabilitation and replacement of the "exhausted" barrels. In the past it was used put on the label the year of foundation of the Solera, but this practice has now been abandoned because it tended to mislead the consumer.
The functioning of the Soleras method
The barrel complex used in the method soleras consists of one pyramid composed of several layers, the criaderas, whose barrels remain about a third full. The barrels generally have a capacity of about 5-600 liters. The layer closest to the Plot is called Solera, while the top one, where the younger product is placed, is called table top. Every year a part of the wine contained in the lower layer is taken for thebottling (this extraction is called pulls out) and the level is restored with wine coming from the layer top, keeping the development of the flower, the layer of yeast which forms on top of the wine in maturation and which allows to limit its oxidative development. The output of the final product from the Solera (at the level closest to the ground) is therefore the fraction that is removed for the bottling of each cycle. There pulls out is repeated several times a year e never exceeds 30% of the capacity of the barrel, although generally we are around 10-20%. The restoration from the upper criaderas (spray) was traditionally carried out by taking the wine from the barrels with a barrel and filling a bucket (pitcher) with which the lower barrels were filled. Today there are automatic pumps equipped with multiple collectors, called octopus, which allow the collection of precise quantities of wine at the same time from different barrels. The decanted wine is never poured directly from the top, but introduced into the barrel gently and always under the flor film, without damaging it. It is impossible to determine exactly the age of a wine aged in a solera, as a blend of many vintages. It depends on the number of breeders, From percentage each bag and from frequency of the saca. A wine from a Solera started ten years ago will have a ten year old wine mixed with nine, eight, seven ... year old wine, up to the last one harvest. Plus the fact that the hatchery higher is filled with young wine, it does not mean that it is from the last vintage, but it could be already ripe wine, brought to a certain state of aging outside the solera. In this way the solera can also be, so to speak, "expanded". In the case of the Jerez soleras are rarely started from scratch, most of the time they start with existing wines.
Advantages of the Soleras method
La quantity of product immobilized for the Soleras method it is therefore much larger than production, also bearing in mind that if you want to increase production while maintaining the characteristics of the product, it is necessary constitute more soleras in parallel. THE advantages of the method Soleras are evident, as the wine produced will be of constant quality, and mediated between the various vintages present in the barrels complex and between the various batches of elaborated wine that are added to the last one from time to time hatchery. By mixing more vintages, the differences between them will be mediated and after a certain number of years the wine in the bottle will maintain a constant average age. New wines are gradually introduced into the system and the influence of these disappears as it takes on the characteristics of the older product fairly quickly. It is said that this system has been developed to satisfy the need of the English market to always have a consistency in the profile of the product. It is for this reason that, for example in the case of the Whiskey, the figure of the blender has the task of making the final product uniform, mixing the distillate coming from the various barrels in an appropriate manner (casks). In the case of fortified wines produced with the Soleras method, the role of the blender is carried out automatically by the Solera, which amalgamates the batches and the individual vintages, obtaining a final product resulting from their assembly. Furthermore, the Soleras method it is essential for aging biological in flower since each addition of young wine brings the micronutrients necessary to support the yeast, which otherwise would die and the sherry would continue to mature in an oxidative way. To sum up, the Soleras method it is essentially a dynamic and endlessly precise aging system. Once fully operational and properly maintained, it will give a wine with a unique personality, the identity of Solera.
The Soleras method in the world
Initially the Soleras method it was used in Spain e Portugal for the aging of liqueur wines such as Sherry and Porto. THE'dynamic aging, made famous by the Sherry, is not actually an exclusive idea of the Spain or the Portugal. It was also adopted in Sicily for the Marsala, where the system is also called "permanently". A fairly similar system is used to produce fortified wines Banyuls in the southwestern region of France and it is called Roof. In Greece, Soleras method is used for the production of a red wine from dessert obtained from vine Mavrodafni fortified, produced in the northern Peloponnese. In theAustralia southern some fortified wines similar to the Porto tawny, with mixtures of Shiraz, Grenache e Mourvedre. Back into France, some manufacturers of Champagne they use a method similar to the Soleras, called "perpetual”To blend base wines for Non vintage champagne. in United States, the producer Ficklin di Ash (California) produce a Port-like wine using the Soleras method since 1948. The Soleras method it is also used for distillates as the Brandy de Jerez and Scotland it is used for some Whiskey. In Japan theAwamori, a particular type di sake, is produced using a system conceptually similar to the Soleras, Called shitsugi. Finally, in Sweden il Soleras method it has been used since the 17th century to produce a sour beer, known as “hundraårig öl” (centennial beer), which is rarely commercially available, being mostly home-brewed for private consumption.
