Tawny Fortified Wines

Fortified wines hold a proud place in Australian wine history and continue to hold a special place in the hearts of aficionados of fine and dessert-style wines.

These wines are sometimes described as “liquid sunshine”, as the grapes are generally left on the vine much longer than usual. This allows the berries to store more natural sugar while drying out slightly in the warmth of Australia’s autumn days.
Wine fortification, which generally involves the addition of a small amount of brandy spirit to the partly fermented red wine, ensures that colours and flavours are retained, regardless of the wines’ storage or treatment.

After fortification, the wine is generally left to mature in small oak barrels, sometimes for decades, maturing into complex, aromatic wines, with immense depth and concentration of flavour.

In the 1850s, the infant Australian wine industry adopted the wine fortification process within a few years of white settlement as it overcame the tyranny of distance from the English markets and the challenge of getting wines safely across the equator. The technique was also suited Australia’s relatively warm climate and the red grape varieties, which were brought by the pioneers – Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvedre.

Tawny

One of Australia’s best known fortified wines traces its genesis back to a barrel of fine fortified wine set aside by the Seppelt wine making family in the Barossa in 1878. Patriarch Benno Seppelt decreed that this barrel, the finest of that vintage, should remain untouched for one hundred years. In 1978 the family released the first of the precious Para Liqueurs. In succeeding years, the family and subsequent corporate owners have continued the tradition, releasing limited bottles of Para Liqueur Vintage tawny wines on the 100th anniversary of their creation.

Wine critic Huon Hooke from the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper summed up Para’s importance to Australia’s wine community in a few succinct words: “Like the ’51 Grange, like a Streeton painting, a Melba recording, a Bradman bat, or a Lawson short story, it’s part of the Australian ethos. A true icon.” (wineaustralia)


See also : steak

ice cream