the favorable Methuen Treaty. This left many Sherry merchants with excess stock that could do little more than sit and age in oak barrels. Unlike during the boom market when Sherry makers were selling their stocks as fast as they could produce it, these aging stocks began to slightly oxidize and develop more concentrated and nutty flavors. As a few orders of Sherry would trickle in, the Sherry merchants would bottle a small quantity and then top up the rest of the barrel with wine from some of their newer inventory. This began to develop into a system of "fractional blending" which was soon to become the modern concept of solera. This system was not unique to Sherry or even to Spain: it had been practiced for centuries in the Rhineland. However nowhere else in the world had such a system had such a dramatic effect on the wine. Through this process of aging, the wine developed distinct characters at various age points. The introduction of new wine into the barrel also stimulated the flor yeast in the wine which then imparted new flavors and fragrances. Through the use of fractional blending, the merchants realized they could also maintain a more consistent profile in their wines across the years. Fortification The taste of most of the wine world was still geared towards sweet and strong wines, and the Portuguese were seeing great success in adding brandy to make their port wines stronger. The Jerezanos began to experiment with adding brandy to Sherry and discovered that the increased alcohol content also had the effect of killing off the flor, which then made the wine oxidize more and develop into another style of wine. The merchants began to call this wine oloroso meaning "pungent". The Sherry makers in Sanlúcar were a little more restrained in the use of their brandy, finding that the unique aspect of flor took on new distinction amid the salty sea breezes that cooled most of the area's bodegas. The finos produced here were even lighter and more delicate with a freshness reminiscent of apples. They began to call these wines manzanilla or "little apple". The bodegas also found that if they limited the number of times that fresh wine was added to the solera they could develop a wine style between fino and oloroso that would have some of the fragrant qualities that flor added, but with