Everything you need to know about sherry.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

It's hard to write about sherry because, by the time you've explained what it is and scolded people for mistreating it, there's not enough room left to say how wonderful it can be.

So let's start with the last part. Sherry, contrary to its image from English drawing-room comedies, can be light, delicate, crisp and absolutely wonderful with seafood; mellow, rich, dry and just the thing for spicy dishes and even thick, charcoal-grilled steaks; or as thick and sweet as syrup, and marvelous with the world's most decadent desserts.

So there.

But we still have to upbraid TV's ``Frasier'' for serving sherry from a decanter he keeps on a bookshelf in his over-decorated Seattle apartment. That's treating it like liquor. Sherry is wine, and must be kept cool.

Ask Jane C. Ward, English-born export manager for Emilio Lustau, the Spanish sherry house that turns out some of the best. She has spent 32 years trying to get people to stop abusing sherry.

"The important thing to remember is that, once it's is opened, you have to treat it like a white table wine and keep it in the refrigerator."

Now the (too-brief-but-all-there's-room-for) explanation: Sherry is made by taking the acidic Palomino grape from the chalky soils of the Jerez area in southwest Spain, making it into wine, then putting it in a SOLERA system consisting of tiers of barrels to age.