Fortified wine da Fonseca, the founder of the oldest table wine company in Portugal dating back to 1834. Port wine (also known simply as Port) is a fortified wine from the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet red wine, but also comes in dry, semi-dry and white varieties. Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez, Spain. The word "sherry" itself is an anglicisation of Jerez. In earlier times, sherry was known as "sack" (from the Spanish "saca", meaning "a removal from the solera"). In the
Aging of wine producers to package and store wine in a virtually air-tight environment. The second was the growing popularity of fortified wines such as Port, Madeira and Sherries. The added alcohol was found to act as a preservative, allowing wines to survive long sea voyages to England, The Americas and the East Indies. The English, in particular, were growing in their appreciation of aged wines like Port and Claret from Bordeaux. Demand for matured wines had a pronounced effect on the wine trade. For producers, the cost and space of storing barrels or bottles of wine was prohibitive so a merchant class