Vermouth is an aperitif wine, made by infusing selected herbs and spices in a base wine then fortifying the resultant wine with distilled spirits. There are many brands of vermouth, each with slightly different infusion mixtures, but most brands include a dry white, sweet white and sweet red vermouth.
Because their flavour is more concentrated than that of a table wine, vermouths are particularly useful when finishing a sauce, mixing a forcemeat stuffing or assembling the meats for a pâté or terrine – they flavour without making the mixture too liquid.
Simple and delicious sauces can be quickly made by deglazing a pan in which meat, chicken, scallops or prawns (shrimp) have been pan-fried; try deglazing with dry white vermouth for seafood or veal escalopes, and with red vermouth for chicken breasts. Sweet vermouths can enhance the flavour of fresh summer fruit, lightly chilled, and red vermouth can substitute for red wine and some of the sugar when poaching fruits such as prunes or pears. Fresh or poached fruit may also be treated to a sabayon sauce based on vermouth.