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Fortified wine is integral to the history of the world of beverages. Its legacy was established in the 1600s as the wine trade rounded the Cape of Good Hope and crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Fortification, popularized by the British, made it possible for wines to survive during these long trips.
Fortified wines have a huge diversity across the spectrum of their incarnations, and there are wide-ranging offerings within their respective categories. In terms of price, they vary as much as their unfortified counterparts. They are dry, sweet, and all points in between. They can be unaged or complexed by oxidative maturation, mass-produced or the preserve of savvy enthusiasts. Some are drunk very young, when vibrantly fruity. Others are consumed as 200-year-old vinous treasures. The variances of style are virtually limitless.
Today, fortified wines constitute 5% to 10% of global wine production, with a market value of around US$19 billion. This guide focuses on the world’s most important fortified wines, ranging from the Iberian classics to France’s vins doux naturels to Cape Port. These are the wines, appearing on restaurant lists and in retail settings in the major wine markets globally, that are important for expert-level professionals to understand.
Fortified wines are defined by the addition of distilled grape-based spirit before, during, or after alcoholic fermentation. All fortified wines have elevated alcohol, and each category is made using a distinct method of production that sets it apart from other categories. In this respect, these wines could be considered more “made,” or manipulated, than their unfortified or dry wine counterparts.
The timing of fortification is crucial in the manufacture of fortified wines as, depending on the addition of the spirit, it prevents or arrests fermentation, rendering a wine sweet because of the presence of unfermented grape sugars. Some wines are fortified after fermentation has been arrested, whether through osmotic pressure in very sweet wines or upon the completion to dryness of alcoholic fermentation. Fortification is an enabler in microbially aged wines and a stabilizer in wines destined for a long oxidative maturation.
Because of the difficulties inherent in accurately measuring the sugar in fermenting grape must, fortification is not a precise science. To fortify a wine to the desired level, the following variables must be considered:
When calculating how much alcohol to add, and when to add it, the winemaker must first know the alcohol in the fermenting (or fermented) must or wine and the degree of alcohol that the fortification should reach. The possibility of alcohol lost through evaporation during élevage must also be considered.
Although the precise origin of fortified wines is unknown, the widespread practice of adding brandy to a wine, and the popularity of the resulting styles, is attributed to the British. One of the earliest mentions of fortification references the abbot of Lamego adding spirit to the abbey’s wines to render them more stable. This technique was later exploited in 1678 by a Liverpool wine merchant who visited the abbey, in the Douro region, and shipped its fortified wines back to England, finding that they survived the trip well. Soon after, when England and France were once again at war and it was difficult for the British to purchase French wine, Douro became a reliable source of wines. Certainly, by the second decade of the 18th century, Port wine was sometimes fortified. Merchants found that these wines were more resilient to the effects of heat and oxygen during long and turbulent sea voyages, and none more so than the wines of Madeira, whose style was heavily influenced by these vinhos da roda—literally, “rolled wines,” or “wines of the round voyage.”
Both the Dutch and British navies, as well as their respective merchant fleets, were instrumental in spreading the popularity of these new wines, steadily increasing demand throughout their respective colonies and beyond. Admiral Lord Nelson was a very good customer of the Marsala-producing houses of Sicily during the struggles with France. These wines were robust and resilient during voyages at sea that frequently spanned two or more years.
While it wasn’t exclusively the British who spread the popularity of fortified wines, they certainly drove the category more than any other group, heavily influencing Australian and South African fortified wines, Port, Madeira, Marsala, and the once-prevalent fortified variants of Commandaria.
TK
Compiled by MW Demetri Walters (December 2024)
Edited by Stacy Ladenburger