From Jerez to the Illawarra: Dean Martelozzo on Headlands Distilling Co's Spanish Sherry Cask Collection.
- 2 days ago
- 17 min read
Most distilleries have a founding myth involving a grandfather, a farm, or a family recipe passed down through generations. Headlands has a barbecue. Four mates in Wollongong, several beers into a summer evening in late 2015, decided the Illawarra needed a distillery of its own and that they were the ones to build it. None of them had any real business doing so. Between them sat an investment analyst, a chemical process engineer, an R&D consultant and a postdoctoral researcher - twelve degrees combined, and not one in distilling. What they did have was a stubborn belief that the coast they'd grown up on deserved a spirit worth naming after it.
They called the distillery Headlands, after the sandstone cliffs that break up this stretch of coastline, and built it on a rule that has barely bent since: Nothing bought in half-finished, nothing outsourced, every stage handled in-house at their North Wollongong site, from milling the grain to corking the bottle. Seacliff Vodka came first, in the summer of 2018/19, and the releases that followed only got more particular to where they were made - an Illawarra Plum Cask Whisky thought to be the first of its kind anywhere, a Stout Cask Whisky made in partnership with a local brewery. Somewhere along the way, judges in San Francisco and London started noticing. Double gold here, gold there - proof, if the founders needed any, that a handful of Wollongong locals with no formal training could hold their own against distilleries with a century's head start.
The Spanish Sherry Cask Collection is the newest turn in that story, and arguably the boldest.
A full shipping container of Pedro Ximénez, Oloroso and Palo Cortado casks made the journey from Jerez de la Frontera to Wollongong, carrying with them a few hundred years of Andalusian winemaking tradition - not as a novelty to borrow from a distance, but as something the Headlands team went and learned properly, in the bodegas themselves, before bringing it home to see what their own climate would make of it.
Each expression begins with four years in ex-bourbon casks from Kentucky's Four Roses Distillery before finishing for three more in its own Spanish sherry cask - a release timed, fittingly, to land on Headlands' tenth anniversary. Tried side by side, the three barely resemble siblings. The Pedro Ximénez goes all in on richness: stewed raisin and fig paste, a slick of burnt caramel, a curl of candied orange peel, finishing long and dark with bitter cocoa.
The Oloroso takes the opposite path - drier, more austere, its fruit giving way to toasted hazelnut, clove-dusted oak and a slow undertow of treacle. And the Palo Cortado, notoriously the hardest of the three sherry styles to pin down, splits the difference and then some: burnished toffee, bitter orange zest, a flick of sea salt, roasted almond humming somewhere underneath it all.
It's a lot to ask of four years' worth of bourbon casks and three more in sherry wood - and a fair bit to ask of a small distillery, period. So we called on Dean Martelozzo to find out what actually happens when Jerez meets the Illawarra, why the collection took the shape it did, and what he's learned about patience along the way.
The Spanish Cask Expressions feel like a fairly decisive shift in direction. What was the original spark that led you toward Spanish oak and sherry-seasoned casks?
Dean Martelozzo: Our first whisky releases were very much built around an Australian identity, so naturally they were aged in Australian casks. We started with Muscat and Apera casks, which gave us a strong connection to Australian fortified wine traditions. Apera, in particular, is especially relevant here because as I'm sure you know, Apera is the Australian style of sherry. Of course, it can't legally be called sherry because it doesn't come from Spain, but for all intents and purposes, it's the Aussie version.
That led to a pretty natural conversation between the four of us about where Headlands should go next. We had already explored the Australian version, so we started asking ourselves what it would look like to bring authentic Spanish sherry casks into the mix and create something that sat alongside our existing Australian whisky releases.
The funny part is how quickly the idea became real. My business partner Tom lives in Vienna and a few weeks after that conversation he sent us a selfie from a sherry bodega in Jerez. It was one of those moments where you think, "Right, maybe this is actually happening."
Two months later we were on a plane to meet him there. We visited bodegas, did private tastings, walked through the cellars and worked hard to understand the different personalities of the sherries at the source. It was tough work, but someone had to fly to Spain and taste the sherry in Jerez. All in the name of research, of course.
Not long after that, we had a shipping container on the way to Wollongong filled with Pedro Ximenez, Oloroso and Palo Cortado casks for us to work with.
I don't really see it as a complete shift in direction. I see it more as a creative way of broadening what Headlands can offer. We are proud of being an Australian whisky distillery and especially proud of being Wollongong's first, but we also don't want to limit ourselves creatively.
That is probably one of the things that defines Headlands. We are not afraid of taking risks. Our Illawarra Plum Cask Whisky was the world's first and, as far as we know, still the world's only Illawarra Plum cask whisky. We've also collaborated with a local brewery to create a Stout Cask Whisky, so for us, bringing in authentic Spanish sherry casks felt like another big swing, but one that made sense.
What I love now is being able to pour people our Australian whiskies alongside our Spanish Sherry Cask Collection and let them compare the different influences. People's preferences constantly surprise me and that is one of the best parts of doing whisky tastings. You can never fully predict what someone will connect with.
When you are working with those casks, what changes most in the spirit for you - structure, texture, aromatics, or something harder to define?
Dean Martelozzo: I think it changes all of those things, but in different ways depending on the cask. That is what makes sherry cask whisky so fascinating. The cask is not just adding flavour on top of the spirit; it changes the way the whisky feels, smells, moves and finishes.
With Pedro Ximenez, you get this richer, sweeter, darker side. It brings out all the flavours that people often associate with dessert-style sherry cask whisky - dried fruits, raisins, figs, molasses, dark chocolate and that beautiful thick sweetness. It can make the whisky feel rounder and more generous and it has the same long finish as our Muscat Cask variety.
Oloroso gives you something drier and more savoury. It still has fruit, but it leans more into nuts, leather, spice, oak and depth. There is a seriousness to it that I really enjoy. It feels less sweet and more structured.
Palo Cortado is the one that is a bit harder to explain, which is probably why I love it. It is complex, a little mysterious and less common. It has some of the elegance and aromatics you might associate with Amontillado, but also some of the body and weight you get from Oloroso. In whisky, that makes it really interesting because it doesn't sit neatly in one category, but keeps revealing different things. It really reminds me of our Illawarra Plum Cask Whisky, not in its taste, but in its complexity.
So if I had to answer simply, I'd say the casks change the aromatics first, the texture second and then the structure as the whisky develops. The thing that is harder to define is the personality. The best casks don't just give you flavour notes; they give the whisky a point of view.
That is what we are always looking for at Headlands. We don't want a whisky that gets lost on the shelf or tastes like it could have come from anywhere. We want it to have character, whether that comes from Australian wine casks, Illawarra Plum casks, stout casks from a local brewery, or authentic Spanish sherry casks from Jerez. We want it to be the whisky that you tell your mates about.
There is a strong sense of place in Headlands' identity already. How do you reconcile that distinctly Australian coastal character with the very old-world imprint of Spanish maturation traditions?
Dean Martelozzo: We are very proud to be from Wollongong and that will always be central to Headlands Distilling Co. We are a coastal Australian distillery and our home shapes how we think, how we create and how we talk about our products.
At the same time, we are lucky that as owners we can help drive the direction of the company. We don't have to follow a fixed playbook. We can make decisions based on what excites us, what tastes good and what tells an interesting story.
Our first two whiskies, the Muscat Cask and Apera Cask, really represent our Australian foundation. They are connected to Australian fortified wine traditions and they gave us our starting point as a whisky distillery.
Then our Illawarra Plum Cask Whisky pushed that sense of place even further. That whisky is probably the release that best captures our identity as Wollongong's own distillery. It uses a native Illawarra Plum influence and showcases something that feels genuinely connected to our home. It is unique, a little risky and very much unlike any other whisky you've had.
Seeing it recognised internationally as the runner-up for Best Australian Single Malt Whisky at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition was a special moment for us because it showed that something so distinctly Australian could stand alongside some of the world's best whiskies.
After that, our Stout Cask Whisky came from a collaboration with Resin, a local brewery. We gave them one of our whisky casks to age a stout, then they sent it back to us so we could use it again for whisky. I love that kind of exchange because it keeps the story local and creative. It also reflects the way we like to work - not just making products, but building relationships and experimenting with ideas.
The Spanish Sherry Cask Collection sits alongside that. It is not about replacing our Australian identity; it is about respecting a very old tradition and seeing what happens when that tradition meets our spirit, our climate and our way of making whisky.
There is real authenticity in using casks from Jerez for sherry cask whisky. Pedro Ximenez, Oloroso and Palo Cortado all have their own long histories and we wanted to honour that rather than imitate it from a distance. But even within that tradition, we still found room for the Headlands personality. Palo Cortado, in particular, is a perfect example. It is rare, complex, a bit unpredictable and not the obvious safe choice. That suits us.
I don't see Australian coastal character and Spanish maturation tradition as being in conflict because I see it as a connection between the two places. The casks bring the old-world influence, but the whisky is still maturing here in our environment, under our care, with our fingerprints on it and that gives it the taste of Wollongong.
Was there a moment in the process - during blending, maturation, or even first trials - where you felt like you had landed on something that just made sense?
Dean Martelozzo: If I'm being honest, to me it always made sense. It felt like the right kind of risk for Headlands.
That doesn't mean it wasn't scary. There is definitely a moment where you realise you are about to order a shipping container full of Spanish sherry casks from the other side of the world and you think, "Right, this is a fairly serious decision." But we saw an opportunity and we felt we had to take it. At the very least, we knew we would learn something from it.
That is very much the way we have built Headlands. We are comfortable taking big swings.
Some ideas are safe and obvious and some ideas make you a little nervous because you know they could define you. The Illawarra Plum Cask Whisky taught us that those ideas are usually the ones worth pursuing.
One moment I'll never forget is when the container arrived and we opened it up. Seeing it full of those signature black Spanish sherry casks was pretty special. It suddenly went from being an idea, then a trip, then an order, to something physical sitting in front of us in Wollongong, with a new challenge ahead.
But the true confirmation came much later. It was when we started tasting the whiskies as they developed. You wait years for the spirit and cask to come together and there is no shortcut to that. You can have the idea, source the casks and fill them with spirit, but then you need to let time do its part.
When the flavour finally hits your lips, that is the real moment. That is when you know whether the decision made sense. Thankfully, the feedback since the Spanish Sherry Cask Collection was released has confirmed to us that it was the right call. Customer feedback will always mean the most, but it has also been incredibly rewarding to see that reflected by independent judging panels from the world's biggest competitions. Our whiskies have consistently been awarded Gold and Double Gold medals at competitions including the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the London Spirits Competition.
How do you approach balance when working with casks that can be so expressive in their own right? Where do you step in, and where do you step back?
Dean Martelozzo: I think a lot of the balance was decided before the whisky even touched the barrel.
When we were in Jerez tasting the sherries at the bodega, the difference between each style was striking. Pedro Ximenez, Oloroso and Palo Cortado each had such a clear identity. They were not just variations of the same thing. They each brought something completely different.
Pedro Ximenez was rich and sweet. Oloroso was drier, nuttier and more structured. Palo Cortado was incredibly complex and a little harder to pin down, which added that little bit of extra excitement.
So the first step was choosing casks that already had strong but different personalities because we wanted variety across the collection. We didn't want three whiskies that all sat in the same lane and we wanted people to be able to taste them side by side to understand just how different sherry cask whiskies can be.
Once the whisky went into the casks, we had to be patient. You can guide the process, monitor it, taste it and make decisions along the way, but you also have to respect the cask and in some ways, be the passenger. If you try to control every little thing, you probably miss the point.
For the Spanish Sherry Cask set, the goal was not to overpower the Headlands spirit. It was to let the cask and the spirit find a natural balance. Sometimes that means stepping in, but often it means stepping back and giving the whisky time to reveal itself.
I don't want to make it sound like every whisky we've made has automatically been a success, because we have definitely had some trials that we won't release to the public. That is one of the hardest parts, but also one of the most rewarding parts of whisky making. You need to have an idea of where you want to go, but you also need enough humility to let the whisky tell you what it wants to become. And for a distillery like ours, still building and still learning, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't at least a little bit of luck involved as well.
Do you think patience is becoming a more defining creative tool in Australian whisky and spirits, or is there still pressure to move too quickly?
Dean Martelozzo: I think patience is absolutely becoming one of the defining creative tools in Australian whisky, but there is still a lot of pressure to move quickly.
I understand why that happens. Whisky takes time and distilleries need revenue. When you are a young distillery, there is pressure to release something, build awareness and show people what you are capable of. The problem is that it can create a bit of a cycle. If one distillery releases a young whisky to get into the market, others can feel pressure to do the same, especially if they are also trying to build reputation and cash flow.
For us, whisky was actually the first thing we produced when we started Headlands in 2015. Our original plan was to release a whisky in 2017, but when we tasted it, we decided it wasn't ready. That was a hard decision, because we were excited and we wanted to share it, but we also knew that our first whisky release would be a defining moment for us and it needed to hit the mark.
In the end, we waited until Christmas 2020 before releasing our first whisky. At that point, we were so excited that we actually released two - our first batches of Muscat Cask and Apera Cask Whisky. They sold out within weeks and the feedback was excellent, which gave us confidence that waiting had been the right decision. It did also make us wonder if we should have done it earlier, but we'll never know the answer to that one.
I think that experience shaped the way we look at whisky. Patience is not just about leaving liquid in a barrel for longer, but it is about being honest with yourself about whether something is ready. It is about protecting your reputation before you even have one. As they say, it takes 10 years to build a reputation and 10 seconds to destroy it.
The Australian whisky scene is much more competitive now than it was when we started. That makes quality even more important. People might buy a bottle once because it is local, or because they like the story, but they will only come back if the whisky delivers.
So yes, I think patience is becoming more important, not less. In a growing Australian whisky industry, patience is one of the things that will separate products that are interesting from products that are truly memorable. We're trying to make sure we are remembered for both.
Headlands often gets spoken about in relation to its coastal environment. Do you see that as something that actively shapes the whisky, or more something that shapes the way you talk about it?
Dean Martelozzo: It is a hard one to answer with complete certainty. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I have the same authority as an 80-year-old Scotsman who has been making whisky his whole life, but I do believe whisky carries something from its home.
The most obvious part is temperature, and more importantly, the temperature variations.
Wollongong has warm summer days, cool southerly changes and cold winter nights. Whisky casks have character and in a way, they breathe. On hot days, the spirit expands and pushes into the oak. Then when the temperature drops, it contracts and draws back into the liquid, bringing colour, flavour and texture with it.
That movement matters. The barrel is not just a storage vessel. It is active. It is alive in its own way. It breathes with the environment around it.
Then there is the coastal air. That one is harder to measure or definitively point to in a tasting note, but I do think it plays a role. We are based in Wollongong, between the escarpment and the ocean, so that environment is part of the Headlands identity. Whether it is shaping the whisky chemically, creatively or emotionally, it is definitely present in the way we think about what we make.
So my honest answer is that it is both. The coastal environment gives us a story to tell, but it also shapes the conditions in which the whisky matures. Even if some of that is difficult to isolate scientifically, I think people can feel when a whisky has a genuine connection to place.
For us, the ocean, the headlands, the escarpment and the changing Wollongong weather are not just branding elements. They are part of the atmosphere around the distillery and part of the story in every bottle.
With the Spanish Cask Expressions, who are you really making them for — seasoned whisky drinkers looking for nuance, or people newer to the category who are still forming their palate?
Dean Martelozzo: That is the thing I love about whisky. The answer is genuinely both.
For seasoned whisky drinkers, the Spanish Sherry Cask Collection gives them something to sit with and break down. Pedro Ximenez, Oloroso and Palo Cortado each bring their own structure, aroma, texture and finish. If you already love whisky, especially sherry cask whisky, there is plenty to explore across the three expressions. Most importantly, there is meaningful variation.
On the other hand, the collection is also a great way to introduce people to whisky. A lot of people who are new to whisky are still working out what they like and I think sherry cask whisky can be a really approachable entry point because there is so much flavour and character.
The three expressions give people a way to understand their own palate. Pedro Ximenez is rich and sweet. Oloroso is drier and more savoury. Palo Cortado is complex and a bit more unusual. Tasting them together helps people understand not just whether they like whisky, but what kind of whisky speaks to them.
That is part of the reason we designed them as a collection. The bottle graphics line up, the stories connect and they make sense as a set. We also offer the collection as a three-bottle pack with a significant discount compared with buying each bottle individually, because we want people to experience them side by side.
For me, that is where whisky becomes really enjoyable. It stops being intimidating and becomes a conversation. People start saying things like, "I thought I'd like the sweet one, but actually I love the dry one," or "I didn't know whisky could taste like this."
The person in that moment is exactly the one we are making them for.
Australian whisky feels like it is in an interesting phase right now — less about proving itself, more about defining its own language. Where do you see Headlands sitting in that evolution?
Dean Martelozzo: I think Headlands sits in a few different places within that evolution, which is probably what makes it exciting for us.
On one hand, we are absolutely still proving ourselves. I think every distillery has to do that. People will support a local product for a while because it is local, but quality is what makes them come back. At the end of the day, the whisky has to stand up in the glass. We've been fortunate to see that recognised internationally through a number of Gold and Double Gold awards, but those awards only matter because they reinforce what we're trying to achieve: making whisky that people genuinely enjoy drinking and come back to buy again.
Our Illawarra Plum Cask Whisky is probably the best example of us proving ourselves in our own way. It is a world first, it's uniquely Australian, it's deeply connected to our region and it's genuinely different. It shows that Australian whisky does not need to copy Scotland, Ireland, Japan or America to be taken seriously. It can have its own identity.
Our Muscat and Apera cask whiskies also help us stay true to that Australian story. They draw on local fortified wine traditions and give us a strong foundation as an Australian single malt whisky producer.
Then, with the Spanish Sherry Cask Collection, we are also paying respect to tradition. Using authentic Spanish sherry casks from Jerez is not about pretending to be old-world. It is about learning from those traditions, respecting them and then seeing what happens when they meet our spirit and our coastal Australian maturation conditions.
I think the future of Australian whisky will come from that balance - confidence and humility. Confidence to create something new and uniquely Australian and humility to recognise that there are old traditions worth learning from.
There are a lot of great Australian whisky distilleries doing excellent work at the moment and I am a big believer in the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. If we all keep releasing quality products, we collectively build the reputation of Australian whisky.
That is when a new language starts to form. Not because we force it, but because whisky drinkers around the world start recognising that Australian whisky has something distinctive to say.
For Headlands, I think our role is to keep making whisky that is high quality, creative, grounded in place and not afraid to be different.
And finally, are these Spanish cask influences something you see becoming a permanent thread in your work, or more of a contained exploration that informed something broader?
Dean Martelozzo: That is still very much to be confirmed and I actually prefer it that way.
We ordered a shipping container full of Spanish sherry casks, however, so they will definitely be part of our work for a little while yet. We have remaining Pedro Ximenez, Oloroso and Palo Cortado casks that are sitting there ageing for us to keep exploring and I think there is still a lot left to learn from them.
But we are also a small distillery and like all of our products, the future depends on a few things. It depends on the feedback from customers, how the whiskies continue to develop, what excites us creatively and where we feel Headlands should go next.
We have never wanted to make products just because they fit neatly into a range. We want each release to have a reason to exist. Sometimes that reason is tradition, sometimes it is place, sometimes it is collaboration and sometimes it is just the feeling that there is an idea worth chasing.
The Spanish Sherry Cask Collection has already taught us a lot. It has deepened our understanding of cask influence, helped us show more variety in our whisky range and given people another way to experience what Headlands Distilling Co. is all about.
Whether it becomes a permanent thread or a chapter that leads to something broader, I think it will always remain part of our story. It represents a moment where we backed ourselves, took a risk and brought something from Jerez all the way back to Wollongong to see what we could create.
That feels very Headlands to me.
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Words and questions by AW.
Answers courtesy of Dean Martelozzo.
Photo courtesy of Headlands Distilling Co.
