Choosing Wines

The Sweet Success of Choosing Sweet Wines

Some people like dry wine that has no sweetness, but others find the sweet wines to be the ultimate wine product. The best sweet wines are made from botrytized grapes which are grapes allowed to stay on the vine to the point where they are beginning to rot. This is called “noble rot”. If you have ever seen a shrivelled grape on a vine then you have seen noble rot.

There are also sweet wines made by adding a lot of sugar to the wine during the fermentation stage. This kind of wine is considered inferior to wines using the botrytized grapes and cannot achieve the same intense flavouring.

One of the choices you will have to make when picking a sweet wine is related to the matter of sweetness. How sweet do you want your wine to be? The range of wines cover the barely sweet to wines so sweet they can be served as a dessert. The flavours of the sweet wines also cover a wide range from honey and nuts to various fruits.

The sweet wines that can be served as a desert are almost like a syrup. The most intense of the sweet wines is the German and Austrian Beerenauslesen. The German and Austrian Trockenbeerenauslesen is just as syrupy. But most people prefer something a little lighter even when looking for a dessert wine.

Simple to Complex

One of the fascinating facts about sweet wines is that they cover the full range of wine qualities from simple to complex. You would think there would be limits to what could be achieved with a sweet wine, but the wide range of offerings proves this to be untrue. The inexpensive light sweet wines are great for sipping over a bowl of fruit with friends. The expensive versions are intense and often served, like Champagne, for special occasions.

The best sweet wines are made from grapes grown in humid climates where the grapes can botrytize properly. The very best sweet wines come from Bordeaux. From this region come the Sauterne and Barsac sweet wines made from a blend of grapes. The Bordeaux wines tend to be the most expensive sweet wines on the market.

Also creating luscious sweet wines that cost less than the Bordeaux wines are the Loire and Alsace regions.

Australia produces sweet wine but the climate is too dry and hot for the best botrytizing of the grapes. This means the Australian sweet wines often have to be sweetened with sugar.

As mentioned, Germany and Austria produce great sweet wines called Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese. The wine is made from botrytized Riesling grapes. Other countries making well-known sweet wines include Hungary and Italy.

Choose Your Grape

Speaking of grapes, the sweet wines are made from a variety of grapes. The Riesling grape is used as mentioned. Also used are the gold colored Sémillon grapes and the Sauvignon Blanc grapes and the Pinot Gris and the Gewurztraminer grapes. If you know the type of grape you like best then it makes it easier to choose a sweet wine.

One amazing fact about sweet dessert wines is that they seldom have a grape taste. They taste more like peaches or apricots. That is just another reason why sweet wines make such a great addition to a meal or for sipping without food.