Term
Flor
flor
The yeast veil
A film of Saccharomyces yeasts that grows on wine in partly filled barrels in Jerez and the Jura, feeding on oxygen and glycerol, leaving the wine dry, saline, and protected.
Flor is why Fino and Manzanilla do not oxidize the way an open bottle of white would. It needs a specific alcohol window (too high and it dies — that is how Oloroso is made) and a humid, cool bodega.
Vin jaune is flor without fortification. The taste — dough, almonds, curry, screaming dry — is the taste of that biology.
Once the veil dies, oxidative aging begins. That fork in the road is the whole map of Sherry.
