12/15/08 Fortified Wines

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. For some reason during the holidays we seem to consume more fortified wines such as Port so today we will attempt to explain just what fortified wine is. This is the time of year that we give receive and consume more fortified wines than at other time of the year. Your first clue as to what fortified wines are is the word fortified. It tells us that they obviously have some sort of extra thing going on with them. A fortified wine is a still wine, often made rather sweet, to which a distilled spirit, usually a grape based alcohol like brandy, is added during the winemaking process. This practice arrests the wine's fermentation prior to all of the grape sugars conversion to alcohol, resulting in a sweeter wine with a higher alcohol level. Port is a perfect example of a fortified wine. The differing levels of sweetness are a result of the amount of sugar remaining in the base wine at the time the fermentation is halted. This is accomplished with the addition of a cognac or brandy, which is distilled wine, contributing to a higher alcohol or fortification of the wine. To distill a wine - the base wine is heated and the alcohol, which boils at a lower temperature than water, vaporizes. Those vapors are collected to make a very high alcohol drink. Thus, the distilled spirit is what fortifies the wine. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.