Wine Word of the Week: Fortified



By Kori ~ October 2nd, 2008.

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is fortified.

Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine:
Fortified wines are those which have been subject to fortification and therefore include sherry, port, Madeira, vermouth, Malaga, mantilla, Marsala, liqueur Muscat, Liqueur Tokay, and several strictly local specialties. Fortification is the practice of adding spirits, usually grape spirit, to wine to ensure microbiological stability, thereby adding alcoholic strength and precluding any further fermentation.

Layman’s terms from Kori:
Fortified wines have had alcohol added to stop fermentation and increase its alcoholic strength (some to as high as 20 percent). The most common fortified wines are port and sherry.


Filed under: Wine Word of the Week

Reader's Comments

  1. wineblogcentral.com | October 2nd, 2008 at 8:09 am

    Wine Word of the Week: Fortified…

    Learning about wine is not always easy but with wine explained through “wine word of the week” you can get to know the basics. Do you really know what fortified means?…