Quady

Andrew Quady changed career from making fireworks to making wine, and the switch produced an explosion of a different kind when he created Essensia from Orange Muscat. It was an instant success and for years he could not make enough of it.

Quady is now the foremost American winery specialising entirely in dessert and aperitif wines, which is a rare thing anywhere: almost every producer treats sweet wine as a sideline. The first port-style wine came in 1975 from Amador County Zinfandel and is now made from traditional Portuguese varieties, and the Vya vermouths brought serious aromatised wine back to American bars at a time when vermouth was an afterthought.

The winery is at Madera in the San Joaquin Valley, hot, dry country where grapes reach the high sugars these styles need. Orange Muscat and Black Muscat are both rarities: aromatic members of the enormous Muscat family, grown almost nowhere else in any quantity.