Fortified wine
wine to which a distilled beverage has been added, typically with an alcohol content above 15%
Fortified wine is a wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy, has been added. In the course of some centuries, winemakers have developed many different styles of fortified wine, including port, sherry, madeira, Marsala, Commandaria wine, and the aromatised wine vermouth.
Production
One reason for fortifying wine was to preserve it, since ethanol is also a natural antiseptic. Even though other preservation methods now exist, fortification continues to be used because the process can add distinct flavors to the finished product.
Although grape brandy is most commonly added to produce fortified wines, the additional alcohol may also be neutral spirit that has been made from grapes, grain, sugar beets or sugarcane. Regional appellation laws may dictate the types of spirit that are permitted for fortification. For example, in the U.S. only spirits made from the same fruit as the wine may be added.
The source of the additional alcohol and the method of its distillation can affect the flavour of the fortified wine. If neutral spirit is used, it is usually produced with a continuous still, rather than a pot still.
When added to wine before the fermentation process is complete, the alcohol in the distilled beverage kills the yeast and leaves residual sugar behind.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Fortified wine” as wine to which a distilled beverage has been added, typically with an alcohol content above 15%. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as wine to which a distilled beverage has been added, typically with an alcohol content above 15%. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q722338. The Library of Congress control number is sh85050983. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fortified wine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.