Why fortify wine

The word fortify means to strengthen, reinforce, and protect. In wine terms , that means increasing the alcohol content, halting fermentation in some instances, and extending shelf life. Still, you might be wondering what fortified wine actually is. To satisfy your curiosity and help you develop an even deeper appreciation for wine , this guide will fill you in on everything you need to know about fortified wine, including how it's made and why. You'll also learn about the most popular varieties and the best way to pair them so you can fortify your own wine game.

Fortified wine is any wine that has an added distilled spirit specifically, a grape spirit such as brandy or cognac for the sake of fortifying it.

This added alcohol content is the most distinguishing feature of fortified wine compared to other types of wine. You might be wondering why someone would fortify wine in the first place.

Well, back in the day before refrigeration and air-tight wine bottling was available, winemakers had to figure out a way to preserve their wine and prevent spoilage. As it turned out, adding distilled spirits to the wine did the trick. Now, centuries later, here we are still drinking the stuff. Gotta love history, right? Fortified wines encompass a wide spectrum of colors, from the pale yellow of a fine fino to the richest ruby of a young port.

These wines also run the gamut from sweet to dry, depending on when the spirits are added. More on this in just a minute. Fortified wines can be made anywhere, but they're often categorized and regulated based on their specific region of origin. For example, much like true Champagne can only come from that region in France everything else is simply sparkling wine , only fortified wine produced in the designated region of Jerez, Spain, can be called sherry.

Whether a fortified wine ends up sweet or dry all comes down to timing. The tough part is just what you mention — how do we know, with our own unique bottles, carboys, kegs, and barrels not to mention the PSI and size of our gassing setup …. The best of both worlds. Don't miss a thing! Take your winemaking skills to the next level. Be inspired by an annual subscription to WineMaker print magazine. The addition of oxygen will create different aromas and flavours to the resulting Sherry.

Unlike Port, which has sweetness added during the fermentation process itself, Sherry can only have sweetness added after it has been matured and undergone solera ageing. If the winemaker is wanting to produce a sweet Sherry rather than a dry one, they add a sweet component to the dry blend that comes out of the butts.

The addition of this super sweet liquid can turn any dry Sherry into a sweet one. Cream, Pale Cream and Medium are labelling terms for Sherries that have had sweetness added in this way. After maturation and possibly sweetness being added too , Sherry is bottled. Finos and Manzanillas in particular lose their freshness quickly after bottling so should be consumed soon after purchase.

Sherry does not require decanting, so this is a style of fortified wine you can get stuck into straight away!

After that, Tseng branched out to drink amontillado sherry, and then discovered her true sherry passion, fino. Tseng found that while sherry works with many types of food, it's particularly at home with Asian cuisines. It's kind of amazing how each part of the sherry will sort of highlight a flavor of the food. Therefore, while vermouth is enjoying its resurgence right now, it's always been a staple for civilizations across the globe.

Where there were grapes, and where there was wine, there was also vermouth. It's one way winemakers have always found something to do with wine which wasn't working for them in one way or another," says Jeffery Dillion of New York's Bathtub Gin. Generally, vermouth is most integrated into the modern drinking cultures of countries such as Italy and Spain. Drink like a local by finding a courtyard and enjoying a spritz or an aperitivo or two before dinner. At the simplest level, most people consider vermouth to be split into two halves.

There's red vermouth, also known as sweet or Italian vermouth, and white vermouth, also known as dry or French vermouth. A typical range of ABV is between 16 and 18 percent, although that's not specified per regulation. Yet, there's no hard and fast rules there. Further, how dry or sweet a vermouth ends up is in relation to the other flavors a producer is trying to highlight.

It's more, what kind of flavors are we doing, and how much sugar do we have to add to support that and make it palatable. Meanwhile, vermouth is increasingly coming from places beyond the classic producing countries of France and Italy. The U. I'm from Portland, Oregon and I think there are three different local vermouths which are behind the bar there.

While Tseng touts sherry as her "point of passion and pride," she also has an affinity for vermouth, and sees new Spanish vermouths in particular as an area to watch as well.

Vermouth is taking off right now partly because consumers have access to a massive range of high quality bottles that were never before sold stateside. More traditional vermouths, which had previously been unavailable in the U. Sherry comes with its own subset of over half a dozen different styles. The best place to start is its actual geographic home.

Solera aging gradually moves portions of the starting sherry into successive barrels, so that the average age in each cask is older than the last, while the barrels are never totally emptied. Also known as fractional blending, this gradually increases age, while also maintaining liquid from all prior batches ever made in the same set of barrels.