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Great Wine Values: Carpano ‘Antica Formula’ Vermouth

Vermouth — the ingredient that can transform vodka or whiskey into a martini or Manhattan – is a specialty wine, not a distilled spirit.

Many American don't know that vermouth — the ingredient that can transform vodka or whiskey into a martini or Manhattan – is a specialty wine, not a distilled spirit. And why would they, because the drinks trade pretends not to know this, either.

Vermouths are not stocked in the wine aisle, and restaurants hide them in the bartender's speed-rack, rather than advertising them proudly on the sommelier's wine list. Vermouth may be wine, but it's wine in exile, in that its very existence challenges the wine world's most sacred belief: that wine must be pure to be good.

Vermouths are made by fortifying a white or red wine with distilled grape spirit (think grappa), then flavoring it with an infusion of botanical ingredients (think gin) and sometimes sweetening it, too (think liqueur). Although the wine world accepts fortified and sweetened wines within its ranks — such as port and sherry — infusing wine with non-grape flavorings such as herbs and spices is the heresy for which vermouth has been cast out and slandered as a mere liquor.

Granted, most vermouths are cheap and low on ambition, but those that do aspire to greatness — such as this spectacularly complex example from vermouth's inventor, Carpano of Milan — deserve recognition as fine wines in their own right. Steeped with vanilla beans and saffron, bittered with wormwood, and sweetened with burnt cane sugar, this elixir is magically delicious, whether you're enjoying it on the rocks, or as the secret ingredient in a cocktail.

Carpano "Antica Formula" Vermouth, Milan, Italy. $16.99 for a 375ml half-bottle (regularly $17.99; sale price through Sept. 30). PLCB Item #8856.

Also available at Kreston Wine & Spirits in Wilmington ($15.99); Canal's Bottlestop in Marlton ($16.96); Benash Liquors & Wines in Cherry Hill ($17.99).