Fortified Wines

Fortified wines are a special category of wines in which a distillate, often of grapes, is added to stop the fermentation and increase the alcohol content. In fact, most of the wine yeasts do not survive alcohol content above 18%. The moment in which the spirit is added has a huge impact on the style of wine produced.
The sooner the distillate is added, the greater the residual sugar in the wine. 

In past centuries, often associated with the English, Portuguese and Iberian nobility and upper middle class, fortified wines are a fascinating and complex category that deserves to be discovered.