Wine for Dessert
Vintage image sourced from History Facts
There’s a reason I called this “Wine for Dessert” and not “Dessert Wines.” For whatever reason, dessert wines have gotten a bad rap. There’s a tendency to think of sweet wines as the bottom shelf, gas station-style swill that tastes sweet like soda, but also not quite like soda, and that just screams future headache. These wines are not that.
And if you do serve wine for dessert, know that it is one of the easiest (read: laziest) desserts you can offer…and yet it’s somehow one of the classiest choices you can make.
Stuff to know
The most important thing to consider about a dessert wine is how the wine got its sweetness. There are 3 commonly used methods for crafting quality dessert wines. Each impacts a wine’s flavor in distinct ways.
Botrytis, AKA Noble Rot
In my opinion, mold always sounds (and looks) disgusting, but there was someone at some point in history who thought: hmm, what would happen if I squeezed a moldy grape and made wine from its juice? And thank goodness they did, because the resulting wines really are astonishing. Botrytis cinerea is the same strain of fuzzy mold you’ll often find on strawberries. When conditions in a vineyard are just right, Goldielocks-style, perfectly ripe grapes will start to shrivel on the vine when teensy little filaments of Botrytis mold poke through the skin of each grape, dehydrating it and altering the juice’s flavor. All the technology in the world still hasn’t been able to replace the highly trained pickers who hand-select one perfectly moldy grape at a time for weeks on end during harvest. Some of the world’s most famous sweet wines, including Sauternes, Barsac, Tokaji and Trockenbeerenauslese Rieslings are made from botrytized grapes, so “Noble Rot” for a name really is quite apropos.
Dried Grapes
Dried grapes, better known as raisins, make me think of those little red Sun-Maid cardboard boxes that sometimes made it into my lunchbox as a kid. There was just nothing cool about raisins. They might as well have been empty boxes for all the value they held as cafeteria trading fodder. But I’d be hard pressed to trade most wines made from dried grapes. They’re just too delicious to pass on. There are different methods of drying grapes that are used when making sweet wines. For late-harvested dessert wines, ripe grapes dry out while still on the vine, where they try to avoid rot, animals and the vagaries of bad weather to hang out long enough to get to raisin status. Another method is "appassimento," from - you guessed it, Italy - which makes “passito” -style wines. For these wines, grapes are harvested when ripe, and then carefully hung from the rafters or laid out, bunch by bunch, on straw mats or specially-designed shelves that allow air to flow through, avoiding the humidity that enables rot instead of raisins. Sugars, acidity and flavors concentrate while the water dries out of each grape, so that there’s eventually a lot less juice…but each drop is chock-full of flavor.
Grapes being prepared for appassimento after harvest at Serego Alighieri, September 2023
Frozen Grapes
And not the kind nutritionists recommend as a supposedly viable substitute for ice cream. If you thought hmm, Icewine seems like a logical fit for this category of sweet wine styles, you’d be correct. And for the German versions, Eiswein. These wines are predominantly made in Canada and Germany for an obvious reason: cold winters. To make these wines, ripe grapes have to hang out on the vine all the way into the depths of winter, somehow managing to avoid being eaten by animals, rotting or being ruined by bad weather. Temperatures have to get below freezing, all the way down to a minimum of 18°F (-8°C), and only then can the grapes be picked, usually by hand at night. A very icy labor of love. The frozen grapes’ sugars become highly concentrated, so the small amounts of juice pressed while the grapes are still frozen make for intensely sweet and complex wines.
There are other ways of making a sweet wine, they’re just not often used for what the wine world would call “quality” dessert wines. Sure, we can debate the word, since there certainly are sweet wines made in other ways that are of good quality, even on the bottom shelf at a gas station. They’re just not all intended to be served as wine for dessert in the same way, so I chose to leave them out of this tasting.
What to look for in this tasting
One of the most critical aspects of a really fabulous dessert wine is its acidity. Think lemonade. When there’s too much sugar, it starts to taste flat. When there’s too much lemon juice, it starts to taste mouth-puckeringly tart. You want lemonade to have the perfect balance of sweet and tart. That’s exactly the same thing we want when we talk about “balance” in dessert wines. The best dessert wines have high, sometimes piercingly high acidity, balancing the wine’s sugary sweetness.
As with all fine wines, you also want to consider the length. Basically, how long do the flavors linger in your mouth? You know how when you eat a really complex, rich chocolate, the flavors linger long after the chocolate has melted on your tongue and been swallowed? “Length” is just like that. You’re looking for flavors that hang out and continue to taste yummy long after the wine has gone down the hatch.
The bottom line, as always, is whether you want to take another sip.
The wines
#1: Sauternes
For the non-Francophiles, I’d suggest trying “sew-turns” when you’re asking for these wines. These are some of the wine world’s best-known dessert wines, so they should be relatively easy to find. From Bordeaux in Southwestern France, these botrytized wines are made from varying blends of the white Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle grapes. The higher quality versions will have oak influence from varying amounts of oak barrel fermentation, aging, or both, adding flavors of spices and vanilla that make these wines extra complex.
What to ask for: Ask by name
Alternatives: Barsac (”bar-zac”), Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, Loupiac, Monbazillac
#2 Tokaji Aszú
“Toe-kai ah-zoo” is the best I’ve got for the phonetics on these Hungarian beauties. These wines used to be the world’s biggest deal back when royals defined global trends, so highly sought after that the very first wine appellation (legally defined and protected region and style) is for Tokaji. Just like in Sauternes, these wines need Goldilocks-level weather conditions to get the Noble Rot (AKA Botrytis) just right. The white grapes for these wines are Furmint, Hárslevelű and Sárga Muskotály. Tokaji wines also have their own sweetness categories, following a puttonyos “poot-own-yos”) scale. The higher the puttonyos, the sweeter the wine.
What to ask for: Ask by name
Alternatives: Late Harvest Tokaj, Tokaji Édes Szamorodni, Tokaji Eszencia (rare)
#3: Trockenbeerenauslese Riesling
Trockenbeerenauslese. “Trocken-beer-en-ow-sleigh-zuh.” Or just skip it and call these wines TBA. Because wow, what a mouthful. But also…what a mouthful! These wines were my first real foray into dessert wines, discovered on a day trip to the Rheingau while visiting my sister in Germany, and they will forever have a place in my heart. The orderly German wine laws for Prädikatswein have 6 levels, of which Trockenbeerenauslese is the highest. The levels correlate to must weight, since grape ripeness used to be really hard to achieve in chilly Germany, and riper grapes weigh more. The name translates directly to “selected dried berries,” and much like Sauternes and Tokaji, the grapes must be affected by Noble Rot. The best-known TBA wines are made from the white grape Riesling, but do keep an open mind. I’ve tasted some stellar Austrian TBAs from local grape varieties like Gelber Muskateller.
What to ask for: Ask by name
Alternatives: German or Austrian Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA) made from other grape varieties, German or Austrian Beerenauslese (BA), German or Austrian Auslese
#4: Vin Santo
This one sounds like it’s spelled, for which I’m just as relieved as you are. These “holy wines” are some of my husband’s favorite sweet wines, so they’ll always have a place in our home. Originally hailing from Tuscany in Central Italy, these wines are made from grapes that undergo the appassimento process, making them passito-style wines. Legend has it that in Tuscany, where local white grape varieties used to have a bigger role in the blend that comprised Chianti, peasant sharecroppers were allowed to keep some of the white grapes at the end of harvest to make small amounts of wine for their own families. They carefully dried their grapes in bunches hanging from attic rafters, then aged the wine for years in barrels kept in those warm attic conditions, creating ripe, rich dessert wines enjoyed on special occasions like weddings or births. Contradicting this lovely legend is evidence of passito-style wines that date back to that somewhat vague time period known as ‘antiquity,’ so where this style really began is anyone’s best guess. Most Vin Santo wines aren’t required to be made from a particular variety, and there are even some rare red versions made from Sangiovese. Most are made from white grapes though, typically a blend of Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia, both of which used to be part of the Chianti Classico blend…and are not allowed at all today, so plantings of these grape varieties are on the decline, making these wines all the more rare.
What to ask for: Ask by style name
Alternatives: Other Passito-style Italian wines like Vino Santo from Trentino in Northern Italy, Vinsanto from Santorini, Greece
#5: Canadian Icewine
Canada’s wine industry is best known worldwide for its Icewines, even though they don’t even comprise a quarter of the country’s total wine production. They make up for the small amounts produced with their high value though, since Icewines can command top dollar. Considering how few grapes make it all the way through autumn to be harvested in the dead of winter (and usually in the dead of night), then quickly pressed while still naturally frozen, I’d say these wines are worth it, even if only to reward those winemakers crazy enough to freeze their tuchuses off while making them. Most Canadian Icewine is made from a hybrid grape variety, Vidal, though my personal favorites are made from Riesling. There are others made from Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay and even Gewurtztraminer though, so keep an eye out to see the full flavor and color spectrum that is Canadian Icewine.
What to ask for: Ask by style name
Alternatives: German Eiswein
#6: Coteaux du Layon
“Ko-toe-doo-lay-on” is an area surrounding a tributary of the France’s longest river, the famous Loire, that cuts across central France. The Loire Valley is best known as ‘the playground of the kings,’ since the sloping lands around the river are dotted with châteaux that served as retreats for centuries of royals escaping city life in Paris for more pastoral vistas. The Loire Valley contains a whole bunch of different wine regions along its banks, from Muscadet at the river’s mouth toward the Atlantic Ocean to Sancerre about 250 miles (400 km) inland. Coteaux du Layon sits roughly in the middle, in a region called Anjou-Saumur. Coteaux du Layon wines are botrytis-influenced, and use Chenin Blanc, a white grape variety that always has bracing acidity, deftly balancing out these wines’ sweetness. It’s worth noting that if there is a particular village on the wine’s label, like Coteaux du Layon Faye d’Anjou, the wine will likely be of higher quality.
What to ask for: Ask by name
Alternatives: Bonnezeaux, Quarts de Chaume, Coteaux du Layon Premier Cru Chaume
Tasting tips
The eats
Dessert wines do not even need to be drunk as dessert. They pair delightfully well with savory foods, and I strongly encourage hosts to consider offering something salty and savory during this tasting. Think pretzels, blue cheeses, bread with chicken liver pâté or fois gras. It doesn’t have to be complicated. That contrast of salty and savory with sweet is the reason why salty caramel is such a popular flavor, and why the best chocolate chip cookie recipes always have flaky sea salt on top. Sweet on sweet can be exhausting. Salty on sweet can be invigorating.
On the other hand, if you have a strong sweet tooth, this is the tasting in which to double down. Test out those baking recipes you’ve saved on Pinterest. Load up on Halloween, Christmas or Easter candy and taste test it all. These are wines that can handle the sugar.
The prep
Before scheduling this tasting, consider giving your guests at least two weeks to find their respective wine assignments. That bad rap dessert wines can get means that many retailers don’t stock a lot of these, so it can take some hunting to get examples of each style before your tasting.
During the tasting, pour even smaller tasting pours than usual. Full-size glasses of dessert wines are between one third to half of a regular wine pour, so the tasting amounts should be similarly smaller than a regular tasting pour, since it’s pretty easy to overwhelm your palate with these powerfully flavorful wines.
As an aside, I didn’t include any fortified wines in this dessert wine tasting. There are incredible (and often outrageously underpriced) fortified sweet wines that are fabulous for dessert too…I just happen to think that they deserve their own tasting. More to come on that front.
