Marsala cocktails.

Marsala is the fortified wine of western Sicily, created for the English trade in 1773 and now known to most people only as the thing you cook chicken in. That is a pity. A dry Vergine marsala is a serious aperitif in the sherry mould, a sweet Superiore is a dessert wine, and either makes a better flip than most ports. The trick is to buy the real thing and never the bottle labelled "cooking".

What is marsala?

A fortified wine from the province of Trapani in Sicily, made mostly from the white grapes Grillo, Catarratto and Inzolia (and from red grapes for the rubino style), fortified with grape spirit and aged in oak. John Woodhouse, an English merchant, shipped the first barrels in 1773 and added spirit so the wine would survive the voyage, as the Portuguese were doing with port and the Spanish with sherry; Nelson's fleet drank it, and the Florio and Ingham houses built the trade. Marsala was Italy's first DOC wine, in 1969, after a century of decline into the cooking aisle.

It is classified three ways. By colour: oro (gold), ambra (amber, from added cooked must), rubino (ruby). By sweetness: secco, semisecco, dolce. And by age: Fine (one year), Superiore (two), Superiore Riserva (four), Vergine (five) and Vergine Stravecchio (ten). Vergine is never sweetened and is the serious one.

How it's made

The base wine is fermented dry, then fortified with grape spirit and, for all but the Vergine styles, sweetened with either mosto cotto (cooked, concentrated grape must, which gives the ambra its colour and caramel) or mistella (fresh must preserved with spirit). The wine is aged in oak, often in a perpetuum system like a sherry solera, where new wine is added to casks of old. Vergine marsala skips the sweetening entirely and is aged at least five years, which oxidises it into something dry, nutty and sherry-like at around 18%.

What it tastes like

Vergine: dry, nutty, saline, with dried apricot, almond, tobacco and a long oxidised finish — much like an amontillado or a dry madeira. Superiore dolce: raisins, caramel, dried figs, vanilla, sweet but with acidity. The cheap ambra Fine, which is what most "marsala" in supermarkets is, tastes of cooked sugar and is why the wine has the reputation it does.

Styles worth knowing

Style	What it is	In a drink
Vergine / Vergine Stravecchio	Dry, unsweetened, 5–10+ years	In place of dry sherry; Bamboo, Adonis variations
Superiore secco	Two years, dry or nearly	Aperitif on ice; a dry flip
Superiore dolce / Riserva	Sweetened, aged	Marsala Flip, in place of tawny port
Fine ambra	One year, usually sweetened	The kitchen
"Cooking marsala"	Salted, low grade	Not even the kitchen

Which bottle to buy

A Vergine from one of the serious Marsala houses, for drinking and mixing, and a Superiore dolce if you want a dessert wine. Both cost about what a decent sherry does. For cooking, buy a Fine secco rather than anything labelled for cooking, which is salted and undrinkable.

Using it in drinks

Treat Vergine as a dry sherry: on ice with an orange twist as an aperitif, in a Bamboo or Adonis in place of the fino, or as the wine half of a low-alcohol stirred drink. Treat the sweet styles as port or madeira: a Marsala Flip (marsala, whole egg, sugar, nutmeg) is a nineteenth-century drink worth reviving, and a sweet marsala stands in for tawny in a Brandy Flip or an Eggnog. Sicilian bars drink it with soda and lemon in summer.

Substitutes

Amontillado or oloroso sherry for Vergine; madeira (Bual) or tawny port for the sweet styles. In cooking, a dry sherry or a dry madeira does the same job. Nothing in the table-wine aisle substitutes.

Storage

Upright, cool. Opened, a Vergine or Superiore keeps in the fridge for a month or two; the oxidative styles are forgiving. The sweet ones last longer still. Unopened bottles keep for years.

Questions

Is marsala only for cooking? No. The cheap sweetened Fine is a cooking wine; Vergine and the aged Superiore styles are drinking wines comparable to good sherry.

Is marsala sweet or dry? Both exist. Vergine is always dry; the others are labelled secco, semisecco or dolce.

What is the difference between marsala and sherry? Origin and method. Both are fortified, oxidatively aged white wines; sherry uses a solera and often ages under yeast, marsala is often sweetened with cooked must. A dry Vergine and an amontillado are close cousins.

Why is it called marsala? For the port town of Marsala in western Sicily, from which Woodhouse shipped the first barrels in 1773.