Via Sherry Notes:

While most of the world’s fine wines are grown, vinified, matured and sold by the same company, in the case of sherry wines this is (was) an exception rather than the rule. The name ‘sherry bodega’ covers different types of winemaking firms which work together to produce sherry.

In fact there are three types of bodegas in the sherry region, in a hierarchy that developed itself in the early nineteenth century. It allowed the industry to expand significantly while at the same time distributing the risks that accompany growth.