With sales in freefall, fortified wine producers are in the middle of a prolonged existential crisis, says Simon J Woolf. Could the panelists at Austria’s Arlberg Weinberg Symposium offer some some survival tips?
The realization that the fortified-wine category might be on the back foot first came to me in 2004, while studying for my WSET Diploma. Our tutor lamented that we were already too late for Cyprus’s Commandaria and Sicily’s Marsala—both axed from the syllabus years earlier. But we did learn about something that had hitherto been one of my blank spots. It was called Madeira, and it turned out to be delicious.
I have fond memories of that period. My fridge was continually stocked with a selection of classic Madeira styles ready for my “revision.” I fell in love with Sercial and Verdelho 10-year-olds, as the penny dropped that they not only made a wonderful apéritif but could also make a comeback with the cheese and dessert courses at dinner. Like most British wine lovers, I knew Vintage Port was supposed to be the good stuff, but my exposure to other styles was limited, until I started traveling regularly to Portugal a decade later. There, the beauty of wood-aged Ports—age-dated Tawnies and colheitas—unfolded before me, with their complex yet subtle bounty. My taste for dry Sherry was preexisting—something I considered to be incredibly sophisticated. There was one common factor between all of these beverages: Even in 2004, they felt slightly arcane, and drinking them made you
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
