SPLENDOR IN THE GLASS: Oh, sweet wine of mine | Glade Sun Leave a comment

I’m sure you have heard this before, “I like any kind of wine, as long as it’s not sweet.” 

Perhaps in rebellion against the white zinfandel and Blue Nun days. If hearing those words brings thoughts of pitchers of purple Kool-Aid, you’re not alone. 

White zinfandel gave dessert wines a bad rap because they were mass-produced and poor quality wines. 

While sweet wine, also known as dessert wine, has been meticulously made and highly prized for centuries, it’s taken a reputation hit in recent decades thanks to those mass-market bottles that were all the rage in the mid-1980s.

Such opposition against some of the most historical, complex and long-lived wines in the world, are barely on the radar of most wine lovers. But these wines shouldn’t be forgotten about, but used to enhance the after-dinner experience. 

The biggest misconception is that they’re only intended for dessert. 

While some can be enjoyed on their own, dessert wines are best when paired with food, and pairing the wine to enhance the dessert can lead to some pretty mind-blowing combinations. 

I sometimes skip the dessert and make the sweet wine my dessert. It does not have to be with something necessarily sweet, or even at the end of a meal. 

But not all sweet wines are created equal.

Sweet wine comes from late harvested grapes. To make a sweet wine, the fermentation is stopped before the yeast converts all the sugars into alcohol. 

There are several ways to stop fermentations, including super-cooling the wine or adding a neutral spirit to it. The result is a rich wine sweetened with natural grape sugars. 

Dessert wines have what is called residual sugar, or RS. It is the natural sugar from the grapes left in the wine after fermentation. 

Sweet wine can have a reputation for being unhealthy, but most wines start with the same amount of sugar, and that is converted to alcohol

While the sweet wine category is awash in low-priced wines, some of the world’s most expensive and rare wines are sweet, such as Château D’ Yquem in France and the great Hungarian wines of Tokaji, all can be highly sought after. 

There are hundreds of different types of dessert wines available in the market, Let’s look at a few of them.

Semi-sweet styles work brilliantly when matched to spicy notes like chilies and ginger. I suggest looking for high-acid sweet whites like rieslings to pair with spiced foods, serving them as an aperitif, or to match with a variety of cheeses. 

The sweetness has the ability to tamp down heat from spices and peppers while imparting an exotic honey and fruit note, while the acidity of riesling simultaneously cleanses and refreshes the palate. 

The quality sweet wines of the world have a lot of acidity to make the wine balance out, while others, like Madeira or port, have grape-based spirit being added. We will discuss those some other time.

A riesling from a small German producer, an off-dry chenin blanc from Vouvray, or a Sauternes, is a whole different world. These wines are extremely difficult to make, high quality and, most important, are balanced.

Rich sweet wines are made with the highest quality grapes in an unfortified style. Many of these wines can age 25 or more years because sweetness and acidity preserve their fresh flavor. 

Some of these wines are historically important, including Hungarian Tokaji (toe-kye) which was loved by the czars of Russia;

South African Constantia, which was an obsession of the Dutch and English and French Sauternes loved by Americans in the early 1800s.

True German eiswein is one of the hardest wines to produce. Just imagine yourself outside in sub-zero temperatures, in the

dark on a slippery hill in the middle of winter trying to harvest grapes. 

Imagine thousands of hard, icy marbles dropping into a grape crusher and grape press. Ouch! 

Many presses break under the pressure of squeezing frozen grapes! 

The juice is so sweet (anywhere from 32-46 Brix), that it can take anywhere from three to six months to make eiswein. When it’s all done, wines have around 10% ABV and a range of sweetness from around 160-220 grams per liter (8 ounces) of residual sugar. That is twice the sweetness of a Coke! 

Dessert wines are not allowed to be labeled as ice wine if grapes are commercially frozen. You will see these products usually labeled as “iced wine” or simply “dessert wine.” 

So if you’re looking for true eiswein, be a wary shopper and read the labels. Many great German eisweins are more than $50 for a 375-milliliter bottle. If you see ice wines for less, they’re probably made with flash-frozen grapes (“iced wine” or “riesling ice”).

There’s such a wide spectrum of different styles and levels of sweetness available, so I find there is more versatility to them than most people expect.

Happy Drinking, Chris