All terms

Fortified wine

Fortified wine is the umbrella term for wines that have had grape spirit added to them, so that they end up at a higher alcohol strength than ordinary wine, typically somewhere between 15 and 22 percent. You will also come across the word "hedvin" for the same wines. The addition of spirit can happen before, during or after fermentation, and it is precisely this timing that decides how sweet the wine becomes. If you stop the fermentation early by adding spirit, the yeast does not have time to convert all the grape sugar into alcohol, and some of the sweetness is preserved. If, on the other hand, you add the spirit after fermentation is complete, the wine turns out dry.

Fortified wine matters to you because it both tastes more powerful and keeps longer after opening than light table wine. The classic examples are port from the Douro valley, sherry from Spain and Madeira from the Portuguese Atlantic island. The styles range widely: from bone-dry fino sherry to dark, sweet tawny port with notes of dried fruit, caramel and nuts. The custom of fortifying the wine arose back when people wanted to make sure the wine could survive long sea voyages.

A widespread misunderstanding is that fortified wine is always sweet. That is not true, because the sweetness depends on the style and on when the spirit is added. Feel free to serve fortified wine in smaller glasses, often with dessert or cheese, but the dry versions work nicely as an aperitif.