Málaga (fortified)

Málaga is a fortified sweet wine from Andalusia in southern Spain, built chiefly on the Pedro Ximénez and Moscatel grapes grown around the city of Málaga and in the Axarquía hills and the Serranía de Ronda. Historically one of Europe's most celebrated dessert wines, it is made by fortifying the wine with grape spirit and, in its sweetest styles, by concentrating the grapes' sugar through sun-drying on esparto mats and by adding arrope — grape must boiled down to a dark syrup — which gives the wine its deep mahogany colour and burnt-caramel edge. The result ranges from pale, floral Moscatel to intensely dark, raisiny, treacle-thick "Málaga" and "Pedro Ximén" bottlings tasting of raisin, fig, date, molasses, coffee and toffee. Long known abroad as "Mountain" or "Mountain wine," it is a distinct Andalusian tradition, and though it shares grapes and a region with Sherry it is a separate, sweeter style with its own Denominación de Origen.