Jerez de la Frontera bodega courtyards
— the courtyard the flor keeps cool through the summer.
Not only on a wall.
Jerez de la Frontera bodega courtyards, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Jerez is the home town of sherry — the fortified wine that takes its English name from the town's old Moorish spelling, Xeres. The great bodegas keep their casks in cathedral-tall warehouses with high lime-washed walls and arched courtyards planted with bitter orange trees, kept dim and cool through the Andalusian summer so the layer of yeast called flor can live on top of the wine. Tio Pepe, González Byass, Lustau — the houses are still on the same streets they have been on for two centuries. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Jerez de la Frontera sits on the chalky albariza soils of the western Andalusian interior, about 12 km from the Bay of Cádiz. With a population over 210,000 it is the largest city in the province of Cádiz. The town is the apex of the Marco de Jerez — the sherry triangle — together with Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María. The wine takes its English name from the town's Moorish-era spelling, Xeres. Jerez is also the home of Andalusian horse culture, the cradle of flamenco's bulería, and the seat of the Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre.
The bodegas are the architecture that gives Jerez its character. Built tall and aisled like cathedral naves, with high lime-washed walls, arched windows, and earthen floors kept wet through the summer, they hold rows of American-oak butts stacked three or four high in the criadera y solera system. Between the warehouses sit shaded courtyards planted with bitter orange and jasmine, and lined with the white tiles called azulejos. The González Byass complex around the Tio Pepe brand and the Lustau bodega in the old town are the two most-visited; both are working cellars, not museums.
Most bodegas in Jerez run guided tastings daily, usually mid-morning and early afternoon, with English-language tours available. González Byass, behind the Tio Pepe sign, gives the largest visit; Lustau, Tradición, and Fundador are smaller and more focused. Pair a tour with the Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre, whose Thursday performance of "How the Andalusian Horses Dance" is the formal showpiece of the school. The Festival de Jerez of flamenco runs each year in late February and early March. The albariza countryside outside town carpets white through harvest in late August and September.
