A guest orders "a sherry" before dinner and is horrified when you bring something dark, sweet and sticky. Another sends back a Fino because it is "too dry to be sherry". Both wines were correct. Fortified wine is where amateurs are most confident and most wrong, so this is where you earn your keep.
The single decision: when to fortify
Everything follows from when the spirit goes in, because fortification stops fermentation by killing the yeast.
- Fortify during fermentation, while sugar remains, and the wine stays sweet: Port, Vin Doux Naturel, most Madeira styles.
- Fortify after fermentation is complete, and the wine is dry: Sherry, at least at the start of its life.
Sherry: flor and the solera
Sherry is made from Palomino near Jerez on white, chalky albariza soils that hold winter rain through a fierce summer. After a dry fermentation, the winemaker decides:
| Style | Fortification | Ageing | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fino / Manzanilla | Lower, to a level at which flor can live | Biological: under a living film of yeast, which consumes oxygen and glycerol | Pale, bone dry, tangy, saline, yeasty; fragile, drink fresh and cold |
| Amontillado | Starts under flor, then fortified higher so the flor dies | Biological then oxidative | Dry, amber, nutty, complex |
| Oloroso | Higher from the start, so flor never forms | Fully oxidative | Dark, dry, walnut, powerful |
| Pedro Ximenez | Sun-dried PX grapes | Oxidative | Black, viscous, raisin and molasses; intensely sweet |
| Cream | Blended and sweetened | Oxidative | Commercial sweet style |
The solera is a fractional blending system: wine is drawn from the oldest tier and topped up from the tier above, over and over. It averages out vintage variation and keeps a consistent house style, and it refreshes the flor with younger wine and nutrients.
Port, Madeira and VDN
- Port — Douro schist terraces, baking summers, native varieties led by Touriga Nacional. Fermentation is stopped early with grape spirit, so it is sweet and high in alcohol. Ruby and LBV age mostly in bulk and are bottled ready. Tawny, aged in cask, is oxidative: it goes pale, nutty, caramelised, and 10, 20, 30 or 40 year indications are the average age of the blend. Vintage Port, from a single declared year, is bottled young and matures for decades reductively in bottle, throwing a heavy sediment; it must be decanted.
- Madeira — deliberately heated and oxidised (estufagem in tanks for volume wines, or the slow, gentle canteiro in cask lofts for the finest). It is therefore almost indestructible: an open bottle survives for months. Styles run dry to sweet: Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, Malmsey.
- Vin Doux Naturel — southern France, fortified during fermentation: Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, and the reds of Banyuls and Maury.
Onboard Notes
Fino is a white wine that happens to be fortified: keep it in the fridge, open it like a white and pour it out within days. Tawny Port is the most useful bottle in the cellar, since it is already oxidised and survives a week open. Vintage Port needs standing time and a decant. Never open one for a guest who wanted a nightcap in five minutes.