Dessert wines, Sweet wines, Pudding wines, Vino da Meditatzione. All ways to express wines made with residual sugar. These wines are often shunned, though at one point they were considered the ne plus ultra of wines. Many people are first acquainted with low end sweet wines and forever associate those simple, cloying wines with all sweet wines. My aim is to educate you on the way sweet wines are made and how you can incorporate them into your gastronomic adventures (even those that take place exclusively on your couch). Sweet wines are made using a wide range of methods impacting their style.
Sweet wines deserve our attention and respect. They are more than an afterthought, or something to have instead of a piece of cake. Sweet wines are more difficult, more expensive, and more complicated to make than dry wines. High quality sweet wines achieve balance between acidity and sugar. Creating and maintaining this balance is the challenge. The combination works because sweetness is deeply pleasing to humans, and residual sugar adds richness and body to wines. At the same time, acidity causes our mouths to release saliva, diluting the sugar, and reducing our perception of the wine’s sweetness. With high acidity, even pancreas-igniting levels of sugar can feel balanced. In addition to having concentrated sugars and acid, almost all great sweet wines are made by methods that add layers of complexity to the flavor and aroma profiles.
The Italian philosopher and gastronome Luigi Veronelli included them in his term, Vini da Meditatzione – a wine with so much to offer that one must stop and savor each sip, reflecting on the long journey from farm to wherever you’re drinking. They are meant to be enjoyed on their own and for their own sake. They can, of course, be accompanied by food, but food is there to enhance these wines, not the other way around. Signore Veronelli might tell you to sip them in the evening, in front of the fireplace. And do only that. Focus.
With that spirit in mind, let’s talk about what to call these wines.
Before we go too deep into exploring this beautiful world of sweet wines, I should establish my nomenclature. I prefer referring to these wines as Sweet Wines. Dessert Wine is too restrictive – referring to them as such relegates them to the end of your meal. An afterthought to accompany, or perhaps replace, dessert. This is a mistake. As an American, I’ll lump Pudding Wine in the same category, but if you grew up using this term, feel free to comment if you disagree. I enjoy the romantic notion of Vino da Meditatzione, but this term includes dry wines as well and is reserved for the best sweet wines. So sweet wine it is.
Sweet wines traverse the taxonomy of wine. They can be red, white, pink, sparkling, or fortified. There are several ways to make sweet wines, all of which work by concentrating the aroma, flavor, and sugars of the grapes.
Botrytis cinerea can be a curse or a blessing. When it grows unchecked, it creates grey mold on the grapes, ruining them. If the conditions are right, however, the fungus punctures the grape skin, but is killed before it overwhelms the grapes. The grapes are affected enough to concentrate flavor, acidity, and sugar, but are not ruined by Botrytis. This type of rot is called ‘Noble Rot.’ Geographic and weather conditions have to be just right for Noble Rot to form. It is most common in grapes grown near a body of water with misty mornings and sunny afternoons that burn the mist off and kill the fungus. Gentle afternoon breezes also stop Botrytis from spreading. Botrytised wines are most marked by honey characteristics, but also have flavors of dried apricots and other fruits. One way to think about it is that Botrytis mimics the effects of ageing a wine, but within the grape itself.
Speaking of ageing, wines made from botrytised grapes can generally age for extended periods of time. They’ll turn a deeper gold color and develop more aromas of dried fruits. Some can eventually turn brown and develop more toffee and caramel flavors.
Examples: Sauternes, Tokaji (including the rare and luscious Tokaji Essencia), Beerenauslese, Monbazillac, Jurançon.
Fortified sweet wines are made by adding a neutral grape spirit called aguardiente or aguardente to a fermenting wine.The spirit is between 77 and 95% alcohol, which kills the yeasts before they can consume all the sugar, leaving residual sweetness intact. The final wine will generally be between 17 and 20 percent. The Portuguese began fortifying wines to ensure they survived the sea voyage to England, with Port remaining the most famous fortified wine in the world.
Port comes in several styles, but the two most important are Ruby and Tawny. Ruby Port is young, fruit-forward, and deeply colored. Tawny Port is aged in small barrels, exposed to controlled oxidation over years or decades, and develops into something altogether different: dried figs, walnuts, toffee, and a warm amber color. The age statements on Tawny labels (10, 20, 30, 40 year) refer to an expected style rather than an absolute age. Vintage Port, declared only in exceptional years, is a single-vintage wine made to age in the bottle for decades. Colheita is simply vintage Tawny Port.
Examples: Port, Vins doux naturels, Rutherglen Muscat, Pedro Ximénez Sherry.
One of the oldest methods of making sweet wine is drying the grapes before fermentation. Similar to Botrytis, drying grapes concentrates acidity, flavors, and sugars. During the drying process, the grapes will take on raisin-like characteristics. Historically, grapes were left out in the sun; today, most wineries use special shelving that incorporates gentle wind flow to prevent microbial spoilage during the drying process.
Passerillage refers to grapes dried on the vine, a natural raisining process. Straw wines (vin de paille in France, Strohweinin Germany and Austria) are dried on straw mats or hung in ventilated lofts over weeks or months. The resulting wines are intensely concentrated and often develop oxidative, nutty characteristics alongside their fruit.
Examples: Recioto della Valpolicella, Commandaria, Pedro Ximénez Sherry, Vin de Paille (Jura).
Not every sweet wine earns its sugar through fungal transformation or labor-intensive drying. Some grapes are harvested with sufficient natural sweetness. In high sugar environments, yeasts struggle to ferment the must to dryness. Historically, this could be problematic as the fermentation could continue in bottle. Today, winemakers chill and filter the yeasts out of the wine before bottling. Naturally sweet wines preserve more of the grapes’ natural characteristics.
Off-dry Kabinett Rieslings from the Mosel offer a touch of sweetness with refreshing acidity along with a delicate minerality that makes their best examples ethereal. Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley comes in a range of sweetness levels, from demi-sec to moelleux. Asti and Moscato d’Asti are naturally sweet sparkling wines that often get a bad reputation for being too sweet, but if you pair them with some ripe peaches or strawberries, you’ll find their natural sweetness makes even perfectly ripe fruit taste more like itself.
Examples: Vouvray demi-sec and moelleux, German Kabinett and Spätlese, Moscato d’Asti, Asti Spumante.
Late harvest is exactly what it sounds like. Grapes are left on the vine beyond the normal harvest window, continuing to accumulate sugar and develop more complex flavors as the season progresses. The risk calculus is part of what makes these wines expensive: the grapes are exposed to rot, weather, and birds for weeks longer than usual, and yields drop. In the right conditions, late hang time may also invite botrytis, in which case a wine can bridge two categories at once.
Many late harvest wines are declining in popularity due both to the abovementioned challenges and climate change. Regions that still prioritize them are the Vendange Tardive style in Alsace and Spätlese and Auslese wines from Germany. I have a deep love for Riesling, especially German ones – their natural acidity maintains tension, even as the grapes continue to accumulate sugar.
Examples: Vendange Tardive (Alsace), Spätlese and Auslese (Germany).
Ripe and healthy grapes (not affected by Botrytis) are kept on the vine until they freeze. Grapes are then pressed while frozen, usually around 3 a.m. These wines are risky to make. The grapes might never freeze, the labor costs are high, and the yield is low. Canada makes more Icewine by volume, but Germany makes the best ones. (Most Eiswein in Germany is made from Riesling and Riesling is a better grape than Vidal. I’m ok with you calling me a snob, but I’m not ok with you saying I’m wrong.) One of my favorite pairings was an Icewine made from Blaufränkisch from Austria with foie gras. It really gave Sauternes a run for its money!
Examples: German Eiswein (Riesling), Canadian Icewine (Vidal, Riesling).
Not all sweetness in wine is born in the vineyard. Some wines have sweetness added after fermentation, either through the addition of unfermented grape juice (Süssreserve) or, in sparkling wines, through dosage. While most wines sweetened this way lean toward the lower end of the quality spectrum, there are exceptions. Some German wines can be sweetened with Süssreserve, though quality-minded producers generally avoid it. Cream Sherry is generally made by adding Pedro Ximénez must to a dry wine.
Sparkling wines made with two fermentations, such as Champagne, have dosage added before the wine is finally sealed. This determines the final sweetness of the wine and can range significantly. Extra Sec (a misleading name if there ever was one) will have some noticeable sweetness, with Doux/Dulce styles topping the charts at over 50 grams per liter of residual sugar. For contrast, Brut, the most popular style of traditional method wines, has at most 15 g/L. (The official number is 12 g/L, but there is a 3 gram allowance, so technically 15 g/L.)
Sweet wines are some of the most well-made, long-lived, and exquisite wines available. Despite their cost, the luck and labor that goes into them, and their declining popularity, many winemakers continue to make at least one sweet wine, if for no other reason than the fact that they themselves love them. If people who have dedicated their lives to wine appreciate sweet wines this much, what’s your reason for not drinking them?