Jerepigo, noun

/ˌdʒerəˈpiːɡəʊ/
Forms:
Cherupiga, JerepicoShow more Also Cherupiga, Jerepico, Jeripigo, and with small initial.
Origin:
English, Portuguese, GreekShow more Adaptation of English geropiga, jeropiga a mixture of grape-juice, brandy, sugar, and red colouring, manufactured in Portugal and used to adulterate port-wine, adaptation of Portuguese jeropiga (ultimately from Greek hiera feminine form of hieros ‘sacred’, a name given to many medicines in the Greek pharmacopoeia + picra feminine form of pikros bitter).
Any of several very sweet, heavy, fortified dessert-wines. Also attributive. See also Cape wine.
1862 Lady Duff-Gordon Lett. from Cape (1925) 157I have a notion of some Cherupiga wine for ourselves...It is about one shilling and fourpence a bottle here, sweet red wine, unlike any other I ever drank.
1947 L.G. Green Tavern of Seas 52White Jeripico, a wine with a high sugar content, is blended for the sweet sherry types.
1947 H.C. Bosman in L. Abrahams Cask of Jerepigo (1972) 37They had a bottle of Jerepigo wine which they were passing backwards and forwards and..taking surreptitious swigs.
1959 A. Delius Last Division 26Cut from the sherried vines around Constantia The grapes are turning into Jerepigo, Vaaljapie, dop, Cape Smoke or something fancier That pierced Napoleon’s gut but soothed his ego.
1972 A.G. Bagnall Wines of S. Afr. 32The sweet types (sc. sherries) have their flavour and colour imparted to them..by the addition of a quota of jerepigo — a well-matured wine in which the sugar of the original juice has been conserved by fortification with grape spirit.
1982 J. Platter in Fair Lady 3 Nov. 181Jerepigo..is fortified and by law must be between 16,5 and 22 degrees alcohol by volume. It can be either red or white or pink and always very sweet and heavyish. The style is powerful.
1986 Pretoria News 24 Sept. 13Life does not begin and end in Zeerust. And nor is jerepigo the only wine the connoisseur enjoys.
1990 Excellence Vol.6 No.2, 5We’re not talking port or sherry or noble late harvest here, we’re talking jerepigo, the umbrella name for our sweet fortified wines, a type virtually unkown in the rest of the world. There’s quite a variety available which is part of the charm...Jerepigo are divided into muscat and non-muscat flavoured wines.
1992 E. Prov. Herald 18 May 2The humble jerepigo and the lusty pinotage.
Any of several very sweet, heavy, fortified dessert-wines. Also attributive.
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JC, nounn.jerrymunglum, nounn.
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