A town in the countryside of Cádiz that gives its name to Sherry (vino de Jerez). It was the Andalusi Šarīš; Alfonso X conquered it in 1264 (some authors say 1266) and it received the epithet “de la Frontera” (of the Frontier) because of its proximity to the Nasrid kingdom of Granada.
15th centuryThe Ordinances of the Raisin and the Grape Harvest (1483)
Jerez tradition places the origin of its vineyards with the Phoenicians, who are said to have called the area Xera around 1100 BC; the Consejo Regulador bases this story on Strabo, but the specific date has not been proven. What is recorded in writing is later and far more solid: on 12 August 1483 the town council of Jerez approved in its minutes the ordinances of the guild of raisins and the grape harvest. They laid down when to harvest, which casks (botas) to use, how to age the wine and how to sell it, driven by demand from English, French and Flemish merchants. The trade regards them as the first regulation of what centuries later would become the Denomination of Origin, the oldest in Spain.
Alive today: Jerez is the head of the Marco de Jerez and seat of the Consejo Regulador of the DO Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, established in the 1930s. Every September it holds its Grape Harvest Festival (since 1948). It preserves great historic bodegas still in operation, such as Fundador (formerly Domecq, 1730), González Byass (1835) and Lustau (1896), open to the public.