The Feria de Jerez, the Feria del Caballo

Alfonso X granted Jerez two fairs a year, one in April and one in September, and Sancho IV confirmed them in a privilege signed in Seville on 23 August 1282, with a market every Monday. A document of 13 September 1481 places the fair along the calle de la Feria, from the Puerta del Real to the calle Francos and the Plaza de la Yerba: the neighbours were to light fires at their doors, and the traders had a safe conduct and lower taxes on the goods they brought. The fair grew out of the trade in horses, and the city still holds a large horse and livestock fair alongside the festivities.

In the 19th century the livestock market moved, to the Hato de la Carne in 1868, the Playas de San Telmo in 1872 and the Cañada de Caulina in 1876, where it became the first fair in Jerez lit by electricity. In 1902, with Julio González Hontoria as mayor, the city laid out a park beside the Paseo de Capuchinos and opened it on 14 September; in 1903 it granted the first plots for permanent casetas. The park, which bears his name, is the fairground still.

Today’s fair grew from the union of the livestock fair at Caulina and the town’s own fair, and the Feria del Caballo itself followed a Semana del Caballo, a week of the horse. Its programme long included the Batalla de las Flores, a battle of flowers between the stands and the carriages along the Paseo de las Palmeras. In 2027 the city marks the Feria del Caballo’s sixtieth anniversary.

Fino and manzanilla are the fair’s wines. The sherry houses bottle them in spring, so that they reach the casetas at their best, and they come to the table in half bottles, very cold. The rebujito, the fair’s long drink, is a third fino or manzanilla to two thirds lemonade, over plenty of ice and sometimes with mint. With them come the fair’s flavours: shellfish, pescaíto frito, the little fried fish of the coast, Ibérico ham, and cured meat and fish.

Away from the fairground, Jerez was named Spain’s Capital of Gastronomy for 2026, and it has its Michelin-starred table, which we reserve. Its bodegas are the other reason to stay a day longer: González Byass, the house of Tío Pepe, Lustau and Bodegas Tradición among those we would visit, each with a tasting. More in the Jerez entry of our wine regions guide and on sherry at the table.

In 2027 Holy Week runs from 21 to 28 March, Seville’s Feria de Abril from 13 to 18 April and Jerez’s horse fair from 24 April to 1 May; Córdoba’s patios follow in May, and Málaga holds its own fair in mid-August. Seville’s fair is the larger, with more than a thousand casetas, many of them private; Jerez’s is the fair of the horse and of sherry.

Jerez pairs naturally with Seville and with Cádiz on the coast: a few days in the city, then the fair, then the sea. Our ten-day Charm of Andalusia runs from Seville through Córdoba, Ronda and Marbella to Granada, and can be shaped around the fair.