Fortified wine Madeira Islands. The wine is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines which can be consumed on their own as an aperitif, to sweet wines more usually consumed with dessert. Madeira is deliberately heated and oxidised as part of its maturation process, resulting in distinctive flavours and an unusually long lifespan once a bottle is opened. Marsala wine is a wine from Sicily that is available in both fortified and unfortified versions. It was first produced in 1772 by an English merchant, John Woodhouse, as an inexpensive substitute for sherry and port, and gets its name from
Marsala renamed "Marsa ʿAlī" "ʿAlī's harbour" or maybe, "Marsa ʿāliyy", "Big harbour", for the width of the ancient harbour, placed near Punta d'Alga. Another possible derivation is "Marsa Allāh", "God's harbour". Another theory is that "Marsala" comes from "mare salis", "salt pans by the sea" from the presence of salt pans along the whole northern coast, although mention of this theory cannot be found in contemporary references and the installation of the bigger salt ponds on the group of islands composing the contemporary single island "Isola Lunga" was made just during the 19th century. Since the end of the 11th century,