Aromatized wine
Infuse Me, Baby
No wine list is going to have an Aromatized Wine section, and yet they are stocked everywhere, as some of the best-known and most-recognized wines produced.
These wines were doing infusions eons before aromatherapy, and sourcing locally when ‘green’ only meant ‘rookie’. Often, they are seen not as stand-alone libations stateside, but crucial ingredients.
It seems lately that every letterpress cocktail menu I peruse is replete with formerly prosaic ingredients infused by ginger, cardamom pods, tobacco leaves or eye of newt. It’s a full-fledged trend that can actually trace its bundled roots to aromatized wines.
Aromatized wines begin as wine fortified with grape spirit or brandy, originally to preserve them. Their alcohol content now bolstered, aromatic botanicals – including flower essences, herbs, peels, and barks – are steeped in, to particular effects of palate.
Sound like witch’s brew? These age-old recipes have become nothing less than proprietary, transforming into worldwide brands. Consider the most famous aromatized wine: vermouth. Now synonymous with the sophisticate’s martini, it got its start centuries ago as a medicinal wine in the hills of Northern Italia.
Or Lillet, the Bordeaux aperitif that conjures Gallic summer refinement. Or Dubonnet, the tipple of both the French Foreign Legion and the ladies of Windsor.
Lest this all sound too preciously continental, wine coolers and sangría are also aromatized wine. If you’ve ever had a night of truth-telling due to Mssrs. Martini & Rossi (or Bartles and Jaymes), you can thank an inventive winemaker. And if you feel a little bewitched the next day, try a little hair of the dog that bit you.