Blended or fortified wine, which is the best?

Wine has been loved and cherished since ancient times. It has such an effect on humanity that it is considered holy. And it found its place in the Last Supper, where Jesus drank the wine from a cup and passed it on to his followers, asking them to drink from it. The journey of the wine from that cup to today’s bottle took work. Throughout this journey, the wine has to face many alterations to cope with the situation. Blended or fortified wine are two of the many alterations made to survive natural and man-made calamities.

What is blended wine?

It requires two or more types of grapes to create a blend. The wine blends pick up the traits of each of these grapes and forms a new profile.

Back in history, there are many records of blended wines, especially Bordeaux wines in the Middle age. The vintner preferred a mixed vineyard to avoid loss of crops or inferior fruit quality. All types of grapes from the vineyard were mixed and crushed together to be fermented. The process is known as field mixing.

In today’s world, grapes are first fermented separately. Later the wine from each grape is blended in proportion. This provides a better trait or quality to the wine. So, in current blends, one can choose and decide the feature. The vintner couldn’t choose and had to rely on the crop in the old blending method.

Reason for blending wine in the current market scenario

To make wine grapes must fulfill the following criteria;

The grape should not be a table variety. It lacks the proper skin: seed: pulp ratio, an essential factor in making good wine. The table grapes are sold and consumed fresh.
It should be hardy.
Must belong to a heavy-yield variety
Should be available in bulk. As it reduces the production cost.
The sugar content of the grapes should be 20 TSS (Total suspended solids).
The acidity should be between 0.6% and 0.8%.
And most importantly the grape must develop a flavor during fermentation.

Many times, fulfilling all the above criteria takes time and effort. In such cases, the blending is the only alternative left. It is helpful in many ways, like;

There may be variations among the vintage varieties. So, it fills the gap.
It creates uniformity in the quality of the wine.
Blending helps to improve the wine’s properties like color, taste, and flavor.
It produces original wines with special traits.
The blending process helps match the specifications.
It minimizes the production cost by using not-so-noble varieties of grapes.

What is fortified wine?

The fortification of wine is a centuries-old method of preservation. In this, the wine is mixed with a spirit or alcohol like brandy. It increases the alcohol content and stops the fermentation by killing the yeast. In old times, the process of fortification made trading easier.

The making of a crude form of grape liqueur way back to the 13th century. But fortified wine got famous only in the 17th and 18th centuries. This was an era when the British became fond of sherry and port.

The fortification technique has come a long way. The wine has two categories; natural sweet and liqueur. In natural sweet wine, the spirit is added during fermentation and maturation to stop the wine from fermenting further. This prevents the yeast from consuming all the sugars. So, the residual sugar content is high and wine tastes sweet. Whereas in liqueur wines the spirit is added after the completion of the fermentation. Yeast consumed all the sugar. The wine is dry and still.

Sherry is a liqueur wine made from a single variety of grapes, the Palomino grape. The port is a natural sweet wine of a blended variety.

Blended or Fortified Wine

Taste

In terms of taste, fortified wines sometimes taste better than the blended ones. Fortified wines have a good amount of sugar content, giving them a sweet taste. But all fortified wines are not sweet like sherry is dry and still type. So, the Mistela (a blend of grape juice and alcohol) is added to the sherry to make it sweet. The wine blend’s taste varies as per age and the grape, which can be tannic, acidic, and sweet.

Phenols

Wine always falls into the healthy category of alcoholic drinks. Mainly because it is an extract of the fruit, it contains all the goodness of fruit juice and the fermentation process. The polyphenols of grapes play a major role in making wine valuable in terms of taste, color, flavor, and health. The blending improves the composition of polyphenols. Though fortified wines also contain polyphenols, blended wines always have the upper hand in phenols. Because in fortified wines, adding the spirit dilutes the wine and its content.

Alcohol

Fortified wines contain high levels of alcohol. The alcohol content in fortified wine can go up to 17 to 20%. At the same time, blended wine has only 12 to 15%. Regular consumption of fortified wines can hurt health. Whereas wine blends in moderation are good.

Sugar

The high sugar content is a boon and curse. It improves the taste of the wine but adds to the calorie. So, it can bring pleasure to the palate but a bad news for the health.

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