Vermouth: What It Is, the Styles and How to Store It

Vermouth is wine flavored with wormwood and other botanicals, and usually strengthened with a little added alcohol. It comes in two classic styles, sweet red (the Italian style) and pale dry (the French style), plus a sweeter white style called bianco. Wikipedia says most vermouths are bottled at 16% to 18% alcohol. It’s the quiet half of the Martini, the Manhattan and the Negroni, and it’s also a good aperitif on ice. Because it’s a wine, an open bottle belongs in the fridge.

What vermouth is: the legal definition

Vermouth has a precise legal meaning in Europe. EU Regulation 251/2014 on aromatised wine products defines an aromatised wine as a drink that:

• is made from wine or other grapevine products, which must make up at least 75% of the total volume;
• may have alcohol, colors, grape must and sweetening added;
• has an actual alcoholic strength of at least 14.5% and under 22%, and a total alcoholic strength (counting unfermented sugar) of at least 17.5%.

Vermouth is the aromatised wine “whose characteristic taste has been obtained” from substances of Artemisia species, the plant family that includes wormwood. The name itself points there: Wikipedia explains that “vermouth” comes from the French pronunciation of Wermut, the German word for wormwood.

In the US, the federal standards of identity (27 CFR 4.21) put vermouth in the aperitif wine class: wine of at least 15% alcohol, made from grape wine with added brandy or alcohol and flavored with herbs and other natural aromatic materials. Vermouth is “a type of aperitif wine” with the taste and aroma generally associated with vermouth.

Wine Spectator’s Dr. Vinny adds a practical detail: most vermouth starts from a fairly neutral white wine, even most red ones, and spirit is usually added to bring it to 15% to 20%. That makes vermouth a cousin of Port and Sherry; our guide to fortified wine explains how it fits into that family.

The styles of vermouth

Style	Color	Sweetness	Classic use
Sweet / rosso (Italian style)	Red to amber	Sweet, with a bitter edge	Manhattan, Negroni, on ice
Dry / extra dry (French style)	Pale	Dry	Martini, cooking
Bianco / blanc	Pale	Sweet	On ice, spritzes

Sweet vermouth. Wikipedia describes the “Italian” style as red, mildly bitter and slightly sweet, and gives a typical sugar content of 10% to 15% for sweet vermouths. Since most start from white wine, as Dr. Vinny notes, the color usually doesn’t come from red grapes; the US rules for aperitif wine, for example, allow caramel for coloring. Our sweet vermouth guide covers the rosso style and its cocktails in detail.

Dry vermouth. The “French” style is pale and dry, with no more than about 4% sugar according to Wikipedia, which notes that it tends to taste more bitter than sweet vermouth.

Bianco. A pale but sweeter style. Wikipedia names Cinzano’s Bianco as an example and says the blanc style originated in Chambéry, in the French Alps.

What the sweetness words on the label mean

EU rules set the sweetness terms an aromatised wine may carry, measured as invert sugar:

Label term	Sugar per liter	Minimum total alcohol (aromatised wines)
Extra-dry	Under 30 g	15%
Dry	Under 50 g	16%
Semi-dry	50 to under 90 g	Standard rules
Semi-sweet	90 to under 130 g	Standard rules
Sweet	130 g or more	Standard rules

Many red vermouths don’t print any of these terms; “rosso” or “red” on the label tells you the style. In our view, the words “extra dry” are worth looking for if you mostly want vermouth for Martinis.

A short history

Wine flavored with herbs is old. Wikipedia traces herb-infused wines back to ancient China and Greece, and notes wormwood wines in Hungary from at least the 15th century. Modern vermouth has two homes:

• Turin, Italy. According to Carpano, Antonio Benedetto Carpano, who had studied herbalism, created the formula that launched the vermouth category in 1786 in Turin, blending botanicals with a muscat-based wine. Carpano says he sent a sample crate to King Vittorio Amedeo III, who adopted the drink for the royal household.
• France. Wikipedia credits Joseph Noilly with the first pale, dry vermouth, and dates the Noilly Prat company to 1813. It says Dolin has made vermouth in Chambéry since 1815, and that the Chambéry area received an appellation for its vermouths.

That split is why bartenders still sometimes say “Italian” for sweet vermouth and “French” for dry.

How to store vermouth

In our view, this is where many home bars go wrong. Vermouth is a wine, so once it’s open it starts to oxidize, just more slowly than table wine.

• Refrigerate it after opening. Dr. Vinny says it’s ideal to keep open vermouth in the fridge, or at least at cellar temperature. In the fridge, he says, a bottle can stay fresh for up to a few months.
• A cabinet costs flavor. If it lives in a cool, dark cabinet, Dr. Vinny expects oxidation and fading of the fresh herbal flavors after a couple of weeks. Wikipedia reports the common advice to finish an open bottle within one to three months.
• Buy the size you’ll use. We’d buy a half bottle (375 ml) if it’s only for the occasional Martini; a full 750 ml bottle that sits for six months is past its best.

Our guide to how long wine lasts after opening puts vermouth next to every other style. An open bottle that’s lost its spark is still useful in the kitchen: our guide to the best white wine for cooking explains why dry vermouth is a handy stand-in for white wine.

Classic vermouth cocktails (IBA recipes)

The International Bartenders Association (IBA) publishes standard recipes for the classic cocktails. Here are the three best-known vermouth drinks exactly as the IBA lists them.

Dry Martini

• 60 ml gin
• 10 ml dry vermouth

Stir both in a mixing glass with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. The IBA garnishes it with the oil expressed from a lemon peel, or a green olive if requested.

Manhattan

• 50 ml rye whiskey
• 20 ml sweet red vermouth
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Stir in a mixing glass with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cocktail cherry.

Negroni

• 30 ml gin
• 30 ml Campari
• 30 ml sweet red vermouth

Build directly in a chilled old fashioned glass filled with ice and stir gently. Garnish with half an orange slice.

For a sparkling twist on the Negroni, our Prosecco cocktails guide has the Negroni Sbagliato, which swaps the gin for Prosecco.

Tip: Because vermouth is a wine, a fresh bottle makes a bigger difference to these drinks than an expensive gin does. In our view, a Martini with a newly opened, chilled vermouth beats one made with a fancier spirit and a bottle that’s been open since spring.

Drinking vermouth on its own

In Italy and Spain, vermouth is an aperitif in its own right. Our pick for trying it neat: a sweet red or bianco vermouth, over ice with a slice of orange or a twist of lemon, before dinner. At 16% to 18% alcohol for most bottles, it’s stronger than table wine, so in our view a short pour of 3 to 4 ounces is plenty.

How to choose a bottle

We haven’t run vermouths through a scored value method, so we don’t name picks here. When you shop:

• Match the style to the drink: dry or extra dry for Martinis, sweet red (rosso) for Manhattans and Negronis.
• Buy from a shop that sells it often. In our view, a bottle that has sat on a warm shelf for years is a poor bet.
• Consider a smaller bottle if you only mix the occasional cocktail.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age (21 in the US). Please drink responsibly.