What Is Fortified Wine? Styles, Strength and Storage

Fortified wine is a wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy, has been added. Alexis Lichine's New Encyclopedia of Wines & Spirits puts it in exactly those terms, and what follows from that one addition is the useful part. Timing decides the style. Add the spirit before fermentation has finished and the alcohol kills the yeast, leaving residual sugar behind, so the wine ends up both sweeter and stronger, normally about 20% alcohol by volume. Add it shortly before or after fermentation ends, the way sherry does, and the wine stays dry. Fortification started as preservation, because ethanol is a natural antiseptic, and it outlived the arrival of better preservation methods because the process adds distinct flavours of its own. The Oxford Companion to Wine counts port, sherry, madeira, Marsala, Commandaria and the aromatised wine vermouth among the styles winemakers have built on that single move.

How is fortified wine made?

Grape brandy is the usual spirit, but, grain, sugar beets or sugarcane. Where it comes from is not always the producer's choice. Regional appellation laws dictate what a winemaker may add, and in the United States 26 U.S. Code §5382 b(2) allows only spirits made from the same fruit as the wine. When a producer reaches for a neutral spirit, it normally comes from a continuous still rather than a pot still.

The timing matters more than the spirit. Yeast converts sugar into alcohol until the must reaches 16 to 18%, at which point the alcohol turns toxic to the yeast and stalls its metabolism. Fortify before that ceiling and you freeze the wine wherever it stands. Sherry waits: the base wines are fortified with grape spirit after fermentation is complete, which is why most sherry is dry to begin with and any sweetness is added later. Port goes the other way and is fortified halfway through fermentation, so not all of the sugar is turned into alcohol. Jerez does not even add its spirit neat. Destilado is first blended 50/50 with mature sherry, a mixture called mitad y mitad, and that is what meets the young wine, so the strong alcohol will not shock it.

What are the main types of fortified wine?

Six names cover most of what you will meet. Port, comes from the Douro Valley in northern Portugal, typically a sweet red, though dry, semi-dry and white versions exist, and the neutral grape spirit that stops its fermentation goes by the name aguardente. It usually lands between 19% and 22% by volume, across ruby, tawny and vintage styles. Sherry, is made from white grapes grown around Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, mostly Palomino, and runs from pale, flor-aged fino and Manzanilla to the darker, oxidised Amontillado and oloroso. Fino and Manzanilla are fortified to 15.5 percent so that flor can grow. Oloroso is taken to at least 17 per cent, which stops flor forming and lets the wine oxidise in barrel.

Madeira, is made on the Portuguese island of the same name and is deliberately heated and oxidised as it matures. Its styles run from dry wines drunk as an aperitif to sweet ones served with dessert. Marsala comes from Sicily and was first produced in 1772 by the English merchant John Woodhouse, as an inexpensive substitute for sherry and port. The fortified version splits into Fine, at least 17% abv and four months old, and Superiore, at least 18% and two years. Vermouth is a fortified wine flavoured with aromatic herbs and spices under recipes held as trade secrets. And in the south of France, vins doux naturels halt fermentation with up to 10% of a 190 proof (95% abv) grape spirit.

What does the name on the label guarantee?

Origin, mostly. In the European Union and the United States, only wines from Portugal may carry the name port. Sherry holds protected designation of origin status in the EU, so anything sold there under that name must come from the Sherry Triangle, the area of Cádiz province between Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María. In the United States the word is semi-generic and needs a qualifier of origin, as American sherry or California sherry. Those wines cannot legally reach the EU. Canadian and Australian producers use Apera in place of sherry, and in Canada and Australia tawny may describe any port-style wine not produced in Portugal. Most countries fence Madeira the same way and limit the term to wines from the Madeira Islands.

Underneath the regional names sits a broader legal bracket. European Union legislation, defines a liqueur wine as a fortified wine of 15 to 22% abv with a total alcoholic strength of no less than 17.5%, with exemptions allowed for certain quality liqueur wines. In the United States these bottles usually take the name dessert wines instead, to avoid the association with hard drinking.

How long does an open bottle last?

Longer than a table wine, and in one case for decades. A port keeps better than unfortified wine once opened, but is still best drunk within a short period. Tawny is the exception among ports: it has spent years in barrel and already met a lot of oxygen, so, it may keep for several months after opening. Old vintage ports run the other way and are best finished within several days.

Madeira sits in a category of its own. The heat and oxidation built into its production leave it durable once opened, and with a cork pushed back in to keep out evaporation, fruit flies and dust, an opened vintage Madeira can last for decades. Sealed, it is one of the longest-lasting wines there is:, bottles have survived over 200 years in excellent condition.

Storage before opening is ordinary enough. Port wants a cool but not cold, dark place at a steady temperature, lying on its side if it has a cork and standing up if it has a stopper. Serve it between 15 and 20 °C, tawny a little cooler, white port chilled. Unfiltered bottles, including vintage port, crusted port and some late bottled vintage, throw a sediment and need decanting.

Fortified bottles are the easiest thing in a cellar to lose track of, because a tawny that is three years past its best does not announce it the way a Burgundy does. We send drink-window data for the bottles you own, so you open them while they are worth opening, alongside where the category is trading on the fine wine market index.