FormatOnline + in person
Duration2 Weeks
Sessions4 live, 2 hours each
BatchMax 20
Fee₹5,000
Who it is for
Is this for you?
- Winemakers adding a fortified or dessert wine to their range
- Distillers who make grape spirit and want a second use for it
- Wine lovers curious how port-style and sherry-style wines are made
By the end
What you walk away with.
- Fortify a wine with grape spirit at the right point for the style
- Calculate spirit additions for a target strength
- Choose between fruity, oxidative and barrel-aged styles
- Cost a fortified wine and understand the labelling rules
Your instructors and point of contact
Who teaches this course and who to ask.
Syllabus
Week by week.
2 weeks. Two live sessions every weekend and one assignment a week.
Week 01. Fortifying and the styles
- Fortification: adding grape spirit to raise strength and stop or follow fermentation
- Port-style: fortifying mid-fermentation to keep natural grape sweetness
- Sherry-style: fortifying a dry wine, flor yeast and the solera system
- Other styles: heated and oxidised wines, plus vin doux naturel
Assignment: Work out the spirit addition for a port-style wine at a target strength.
Week 02. Ageing, blending and selling
- Ageing in barrel and tank: what oxygen does over years
- Blending for a house style that stays the same every year
- Names such as Port and Sherry are protected place names; how to label your own style
- Excise, labels and pricing for fortified wine in India, which vary by state
Assignment: Design a fortified wine and its label for your market.
How it runs
Format and terms.
- Schedule
- Live on Saturdays and Sundays, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM IST. Timings may shift by mutual agreement with the cohort.
- Batch size
- Maximum 20 students, so every question gets answered.
- Included
- Session recordings, presentation decks, weekly assignments and the learning kit.
- Certificate
- Certificate of Completion once every assignment is in and you have attended at least 80% of live sessions.
- Beyond the screen
- Recommended microbrewery visits, so you see the kit you are studying.
- Fees
- Paid in full at sign-up. No discounts apply. A package of courses cannot be changed once confirmed.
Want the full flight? All 27 courses together run to 71 weeks. You choose your package when you enrol. Compare all 27 courses and read the refund policy before you pay.
Keep reading
Read before you start
Consultancy
Fortified wine: how port-style and sherry-style wines are made
Port and sherry are both wine plus spirit. The difference is when the spirit goes in. That changes everything.
Wine
How wine is made, from vineyard to bottle
Beer can be brewed any week of the year. Wine gets one go. It starts in a field.
Wine
Common wine faults, for quality and supply teams
Musty, vinegary, cooked or flat. Each fault points to a different place in the chain and to a different fix.
Recommended reading
Every guide for this course.
48 free guides on the topics this course covers. Read any of them before the first session.
Wine 38
- Becoming a wine sommelier in India: training and first jobs
- Building a wine list for an Indian restaurant or brewpub
- Cellar hygiene in a small winery: stopping spoilage before it starts
- Choosing wine glasses without buying a full cabinet of them
- Cork, screw cap or synthetic closure: how each one affects wine
- Decanting wine: when it helps and how to do it at home
- Designing a wine label that stands out on Indian store shelves
- Growing wine grapes in a tropical climate with double pruning
- Fruit wines in India: jamun, mango, pineapple and the rules
- How long an opened bottle of wine lasts and how to keep it fresh
- How sparkling wine gets its bubbles
- How winemakers blend wine across varieties and barrels
- Late harvest and dessert wines: how the sweetness is kept
- Malolactic fermentation in wine and what it does to flavour
- Natural, organic and biodynamic wine: what the words really mean
- Oak barrels, chips or staves in winemaking and what each costs
- Orange wine explained: white grapes made the way reds are made
- Ordering wine at a restaurant in India without the stress
- Red wine maceration: getting colour and tannin out of the skins
- Sulphites in wine: why they are added and who should worry
- Sweetness, acidity and tannin in wine
- Why the same wine tastes different from one vintage to the next
- Wine and cheese pairing for beginners, with Indian cheeses too
- Wine pricing and restaurant mark-ups in India, explained
- Serving wine at the right temperature in an Indian summer
- Starting a tasting room and wine tourism at a small Indian winery
- WSET wine qualifications compared, level by level
- Common wine faults, for quality and supply teams
- Old World and New World wine
- Pairing wine with Indian food
- Wine storage and the cold chain in Indian heat
- Winery KPIs: yield per tonne, losses and cellar stock
- Reading a wine label
- Tasting wine without the jargon
- Harvest and vintage: why wine planning runs on one crop a year
- India's wine regions: Nashik, Nandi Hills and beyond
- Red, white, rosé and sparkling: how each wine is made
- How wine is made, from vineyard to bottle
Drinks business 4
Consultancy 2
Save your seat in Fortified Wine.
Cohorts cap at 20. Enrol now or ask us on WhatsApp.