Fortified wine is a wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy, is added. Many different styles of fortified wine have been developed, including Port, Sherry, Madeira, Marsala, Commandaria wine, and the aromatised wine Vermouth.
Vermouth is an aromatized, fortified white wine flavored with various botanicals and sometimes colored.
Cognac is a variety of brandy named after the town of Cognac, France. It is produced in the surrounding wine-growing region in the departments of Charente and Charente-Maritime.
The Negroni is a popular Italian cocktail, made of one part gin, one part vermouth rosso, and one part Campari, garnished with orange peel. It is considered an apéritif. The Negroni and the Americano are known as the Red Martini.
Quinquina, an aromatised wine, is a variety of apéritif wine. Traditionally quinquinas contain cinchona bark, which provides quinine. Quinine was used in treating malaria.
Campari is an alcoholic liqueur, considered an apéritif, obtained from the infusion of herbs and fruit in alcohol and water. It is a bitters, characterised by its dark red colour.
Banyuls is a French appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) for a fortified apéritif or dessert wine made from old vines cultivated in terraces on the slopes of the Catalan Pyrenees in the Roussillon county of France, bordering, to the south, the Empordà wine region in Catalonia in Spain.
Trollinger is a red German/Italian wine grape variety that was likely first originally cultivated in the wine regions of South Tyrol and Trentino, but today is almost exclusively cultivated on steep, sunny locations in the Württemberg wine region of Baden-Württemberg. It is primarily known under the synonyms Trollinger in Germany, Vernatsch in South Tyrol and Schiava in other Italian regions. As a table grape the variety is sometimes known as Black Hamburg, which is commonly confused with the similar synonym for Black Muscat—a variety that is actually a cross of Trollinger and Muscat of Alexandria.
The Val d'Orcia, or Valdorcia, is a region of Tuscany, central Italy, which extends from the hills south of Siena to Monte Amiata. Its gentle, cultivated hills are occasionally broken by gullies and by picturesque towns and villages such as Pienza, Radicofani and Montalcino. Its landscape has been depicted in works of art from Renaissance painting to modern photography.
Amaro is an Italian herbal liqueur that is commonly consumed as an after-dinner digestif. It usually has a bitter-sweet flavour, sometimes syrupy, and has an alcohol content between 16% and 40%.
Brindisi Rosso is a red DOC wine from the Southern Italian province of Brindisi, in the region of Apulia. The official appellation was granted on November 22, 1979, when a presidential decree was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale dated April 23, 1980, after lobbying by the firm of Pasquale Medico & Sons and other producers. In recent years the production of this variety of wine has declined considerably, due to the uprooting of vines as a result of incentives from the EU, which has favoured other products. The province of Brindisi has a very long tradition of wine making, largely because Brindisi was the Roman gateway to the East and sold its wine to Rome along with salt and olive oil imported from the empire's Mediterranean provinces.
Gaglioppo is a red wine grape that is grown in southern Italy, primarily around Calabria. The vine performs well in drought conditions but is susceptible to oidium and peronospora. The grape produces wine that is full-bodied, high in alcohol and tannins with a need for considerable time in the bottle for it to soften in character. It is sometimes blended with up to 10% white wine.
Nerello is a name given to two varieties of red wine grapes that are grown primarily in Sicily and Sardinia.
Çal Karası is a variety of red wine grape from the Çal district of the Denizli Province of western Turkey. It also gives its name to a wine produced from the grape, which is sweet with berry fruit flavours.
A Spritz Veneziano, also called just Spritz or just Veneziano, is an Italian wine-based cocktail, commonly served as an aperitif in Northeast Italy.
An alcoholic drink is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. Drinking alcohol plays an important social role in many cultures. Most countries have laws regulating the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Some countries ban such activities entirely, but alcoholic drinks are legal in most parts of the world. The global alcoholic drink industry exceeded $1 trillion in 2014.
Girò is a red Italian wine grape variety that is grown on Sardinia and used mostly in the production of fortified wines in the Giro di Cagliari Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC). The grape was once widely planted throughout Sardinia but its plantings were decimated when the phylloxera epidemic hit the island at the end of the nineteenth century. At the turn of the 21st century there were 552 hectares of the grape planted throughout Italy, mostly in the Sardinian provinces of Cagliari and Oristano.
Rosso Barletta is a red Italian wine produced in the Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) region of Barletta, located in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani of north-central Apulia. The DOC is permitted to produce red wine only, made primarily from Uva di Troia, and is one of the few wine regions in Italy where Malbec is grown and permitted in a DOC wine. The DOC covers over 60 hectares that are planted to Uva di Troia, Montepulciano, Sangiovese, and Malbec. Rosso Barletta is noted in history for being the spark for a jousting skirmish, now known as the Challenge of Barletta, involving thirteen local Italian knights against thirteen French knights, following an evening of drinking too much Barletta wine. According to the Italian Trade Commission, when the wine region was officially recognised it retained the name Rosso Barletta in commemoration of the historic connection between the region's wine and the event.
An aromatised wine is a fortified wine or mistelle that has been flavoured with herbs, spices, fruit or other natural flavourings.
