Via Vitis

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Sanlúcar de Barrameda

Cádiz · Andalusia

DO Jerez-Xérès-Sherry DO Manzanilla de Sanlúcar

70.012inhabitants

1297first mention

1781wine documented

A town at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, the cradle of Manzanilla. Its history as a seigneurial town begins in 1297, when Ferdinand IV confirmed the grant of Sanlúcar to Alonso Pérez de Guzmán “the Good”, the origin of the house of Medina Sidonia.

First mention: Grant by Ferdinand IV to Guzmán the Good (Toro, 13 October 1297) of “the town of Sanlúcar”. Earlier it appears as “Sam Luchas” in Cantiga 371 of Alfonso X, without a precise date (last third of the 13th century).

The legend

18th century

The riddle of the name Manzanilla

In Sanlúcar nobody knows for sure why its wine is called manzanilla, and several explanations circulate in the town. The most often repeated says that the fino aged near the mouth of the Guadalquivir smells of manzanilla flower (camomile), a comparison already made by the botanist Esteban Boutelou in the early 19th century. Other versions attribute it to the village of Manzanilla in Huelva, whose wines stood up well to the voyage to America; to a supposed aroma of apple (manzana); or to a grape variety of that name that has since disappeared. What can be dated is its first appearance in writing: a minute of the Cádiz town council from 1781 already uses the name for a wine from Sanlúcar.

Alive today: Sanlúcar is the only place where manzanilla can be aged, protected by the DO Manzanilla-Sanlúcar de Barrameda, with its own regulations since 1964 and a Consejo Regulador shared with Jerez. Its great festival is the Feria de la Manzanilla, between May and June. Historic bodegas in the Barrio Alto remain active, such as Delgado Zuleta (1744) and Barbadillo (1821).