🏷️ Criadera

Criadera is a row of barrels in a solera system where younger wine is aged. The Spanish word comes from a verb meaning to raise or nurture. The system is used above all for sherry in Andalusia, in southern Spain.

It works like this. Barrels are stacked in tiers. The bottom row is called the solera and holds the oldest wine. Above it are criadera rows with younger wine. When part of the solera wine is drawn off for bottling, it is topped up from the nearest criadera, and that one from the next one up. In this way wines of different ages blend gradually, and the taste stays steady from year to year.

A criadera cannot be seen apart from the solera, as they are parts of one system. It is an important part of Spain's wine heritage. The number of rows varies, from two or three to ten or more. The word criadera is close in meaning to nursery: in these rows the wine grows up, as it were, before moving down.