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In the spectrum of wines,
from red to white to pink, sparkling to still,
at the far end of the 'sweetness' scale is
dessert wine. Intensely sweet, a high-quality
dessert wine can be richly flavored, complex
and downright ethereal. Below we highlight
the different ways dessert wines can be made,
how that impacts the character of the wine and
what to consider when pairing with
food:
Late Harvest Dessert
Wines
One of the most simple ways to
craft a dessert wine is simply by harvesting
the grapes late. Left on the vine when there is
still good ripening weather, grapes will
continue to sweeten. A fine balance has to be
struck between attaining those high sugar
levels and having the grapes simply dry out
into raisins since undesirable flavors can come
if this process goes too far.
Late harvest wines may also be affected by
botrytis - a special type of fungus - that is
described below, but that is not necessarily
the case. Wines affected by botrytis will
generally be significantly sweeter than those
that are simply picked late. In some cases,
individual grapes that show more advanced
ripeness may be picked out of the bunches by
hand to get an even more highly concentrated
wine. An example is the family of German
'auslese' wines which literally translates to
'pick out'.
Dessert Wines from Botrytis or "Noble
Rot"
Normally, any type of rot is the
last thing you want for growing grapes - but
there is one type that is desirable and ideal
for quality dessert wines. Botrytis, also
nicknamed 'noble rot', develops under wet
conditions and can ruin a crop. If conditinos
wet enough to lead to botrytis are followed by
dry conditions, the fungus will effectively
remove water from the grapes leaving behind the
sugar and flavor components in higher
concentration.
Sauternes from Bordeaux is one of the most
famous examples of wine affected by botrytis,
but many other wine regions can also produce
these dessert wines. German Beerenauslese and
Trockenbeerenauslese wines are generally
produced from grapes highly affected by
botrytis while the lesser Auslese may be
affected only mildly or not at all and will
generally be more moderately sweet and less
rich in body.
Ice
Wine or 'Eiswein' Dessert Wines
Under very special growing
conditions, a wine being grown for late harvest
picking can be made into ice wine -
when the grapes actually freeze on the vine
with frost. Freezing causes the water in the
grapes to turn into ice crystals, so during
pressing this solid matter is left with
the skins and pulp and the juice that
comes off is highly concentrated in sugar. The
English term for this style of wine is Ice
Wine, and in Germany is called 'Eiswein' which
translates to the same.
Making ice wine requires a sharp enough
frost to arrive when good ripening
weather still exists, which is exceedingly
rare. and ice wines may not be
able to be made in every vintage
if weather does not
cooperate. For many years, Germany had a
nearly exclusive reign over the production of
ice wines although it could only be made in a
few vintages each decade. The Niagara area of
Canada also has particularly unique and
remarkably consistent conditions year
to year for making ice wine.
Next
Article: Aging Wine in Oak
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