Sparkling and fortified wine at the bar

Half the drinks on a good list are wine drinks in disguise. The Spritz is prosecco with a splash of bitter; the French 75 is a gin sour lengthened with champagne; the cobbler, the drink that taught America to use a straw, is sherry over crushed ice. Knowing the wines is knowing the drinks.

Sparkling wine

Champagne comes only from the Champagne region of France and is made by the traditional method. The base wines are pressed, fermented and blended, then bottled with a dose of sugar and yeast no earlier than January 1 after the harvest. A second fermentation in the sealed bottle makes the bubbles; the wine then rests on its spent yeast, the lees, for at least fifteen months, which is where the bread and brioche aromas come from. The bottles are riddled to collect the sediment in the neck, disgorged, and topped with a dosage that sets the sweetness, from brut to the sweeter demi-sec and doux. Non-vintage brut is the house style; vintage, blanc de blancs (white grapes only, in practice chardonnay), blanc de noirs (black grapes only) and rose are the variations.

Prosecco is Italy's volume sparkler, from nine provinces across Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia. The grape is glera, with up to 15 percent of other listed varieties, and the method is Martinotti: the second fermentation happens in large sealed tanks rather than in bottle, which keeps the wine fresh, fruity and inexpensive. The consorzio's advice is to drink it young. Spumante is fully sparkling; frizzante is gently so.

Cava is Spain's traditional-method wine, mostly from the Comtats de Barcelona zone around the Penedes but with zones in the Ebro valley, Almendralejo and the Levante. Its aging ladder runs from Cava de Guarda through Reserva and Gran Reserva to the single-estate Paraje Calificado, and its sweetness scale from brut nature to dulce. For cocktails, cava is the bargain: traditional-method texture at prosecco prices.

Store sparkling wine cold and upright once open, with a proper clamp stopper; it holds for a day or two. For mixing, a dry style is always correct, and the wine should be as cold as the drink.

Sherry

Sherry comes from the triangle of Jerez, Sanlucar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa Maria in Andalusia. The base is palomino, fermented dry, and then fortified with grape spirit, and the level of fortification decides the wine's whole life. Fino is fortified to 15 percent and aged under flor, a film of yeast that seals the wine from air and feeds on it, giving a pale, saline, bone-dry wine; manzanilla is the same style aged in Sanlucar de Barrameda under its own denomination. Oloroso is fortified to about 17 percent so that flor cannot grow, and ages in contact with air, darkening and concentrating toward 17 to 22 percent with walnut, tobacco and leather. Amontillado begins under flor and finishes oxidatively; palo cortado is the rarer wine that drifts from one path to the other. Pedro ximenez and moscatel are the naturally sweet wines; cream is oloroso blended with pedro ximenez.

Every sherry ages at least two years through the solera and criaderas: wine for bottling is drawn from the oldest casks at floor level and replaced from younger rows above, so that the blend stays consistent across decades. Serve fino and manzanilla cold, at 6 to 8 C, and finish an open bottle within days; oloroso and amontillado keep for weeks in the refrigerator.

Port and madeira

Port is made in the Douro valley, demarcated and regulated from 1756 under the Marques de Pombal and described by its institute as the oldest such wine region in the world, and fortified during fermentation: grape spirit, about one part to four of fermenting must, stops the yeast and leaves the grape's sugar in the wine, at 19 to 22 percent. From there the styles split by where they age. Ruby and reserve mature in bottle and stay fruity; late bottled vintage is a single year held four to six years in wood; vintage is bottled after two or three years and ages in the bottle for decades. Tawny matures in wood, oxidizing to amber, with reserve, 10, 20, 30 and 40 year indications, and colheita is a single-vintage tawny of at least seven years. White port follows the tawny ladder and makes the best port highball.

Madeira is the fortified wine that cannot be killed. It is fortified with grape spirit and then heated, either quickly in warm tanks (estufagem) or slowly over years in sun-warmed lofts (canteiro), which cooks it into stability. The noble grapes set the sweetness: sercial dry, verdelho medium dry, bual medium sweet, malmsey sweet, with tinta negra making most of the volume. Age tiers run from five-year reserve through ten and fifteen to frasqueira, twenty years in cask. An open bottle lasts for months, which makes madeira the most forgiving wine a bar can stock.

In cocktails

The French 75 is gin, lemon, sugar and champagne, a recipe that settled in Judge Jr's 1927 book and the Savoy in 1930; the cognac version is a 1948 variant that New Orleans adopted. Use a dry champagne or a good cava; the wine is half the drink. The Aperol Spritz is three parts prosecco, two parts Aperol and one of soda over ice, and a dry, fruity prosecco is correct; champagne is wasted here. The Sherry Cobbler, sherry shaken with sugar and fruit and poured over crushed ice, was the fashionable drink of 1830s America and the reason the straw caught on; an amontillado or a split of oloroso and pedro ximenez gives the best version. The Bamboo, equal parts fino and dry vermouth with bitters, and the Adonis with sweet vermouth are the low-proof stirred classics. Tawny port in a Port Flip, and madeira in place of sweet vermouth in a stirred build, round out the shelf.

Buying by style

Keep a dry cava or a modest brut champagne for French 75s and a prosecco for Spritz; buy the cheaper one in volume and the better one for the drink where it shows. Stock a fino or manzanilla in half bottles and replace them often, an amontillado or oloroso for cobblers and stirring, and a bottle of pedro ximenez for sweetness. One tawny port and one five or ten year madeira cover the rest. Read labels for the style word, not the brand, and refrigerate everything once open except madeira.

Folklore and fact

The cognac French 75 is a fine drink and a later one; the recipe that made the name was gin. The idea that sherry means sweet comes from the cream styles of the mid twentieth century and is false for the dry wines that make up the category's heart. We have not stated champagne's dosage grams or lees minimums beyond fifteen months because the regulator's pages we read do not give them; the figures circulate widely and will be added when read from the source.

Sources

• Comite Champagne, "How champagne is made" and "Types of champagne".
• Consorzio Prosecco DOC; Consejo Regulador del Cava.
• Consejo Regulador de Jerez, "The sherry region", "Fino", "Oloroso", "Amontillado", "Palo cortado", "Cream" and "Production".
• Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto, "The winemaking", "Special categories" and "A Regiao Demarcada do Douro" (PDF).
• Difford's Guide, "Madeira fortified wine", "French 75 cocktail history" and "Sherry Cobbler".