SWEET WINE

 SWEET WINE

SWEET WINE

 sweet wines. Gorgeous, luscious, seductive, sticky sweet wines. The perfect partners for puddings... or even instead of pudding. On the other hand, there are sickly sweet wines, tooth-rotting glasses of dull gloop, like sugar-water, that spoil dessert and are undrinkable on their own - the sort of bottles that get passed from one charity raffle to the next. No one can think of an occasion on which to drink it, and no one would be seen dead with such an old-fashioned drink in their wine rack.

 

So, will the real sweet wines please stand up? Ambrosial or awful? This is certainly a style with an image problem. Sweet wines have not been in vogue for quite some time. Sure enough, there are some truly terrible examples around. Making your way round the world of dessert wines - aka pudding wines, sweet wines, stickies or sweeties - is something of a minefield. 

There are some weird and wonderful sweet wines out there. Certainly the way in which some of these wines are made is weird, as we shall see, but when you get a good one - a well-made Sauternes, perhaps, or fine Austrian Beerenauslese - you can see what all the fuss is about. There's something about the pairing of a wonderful dessert, let's say, a sumptuous homemade chocolate mousse, with a small, frosted glass of perfectly chilled sweet wine that is quite sublime. And rather impressive, it must be said, at the end of a grand dinner party.

SWEET WINE

Lots of keen wine fans seem to find this particular style rather complicated and daunting. However, knowing just a little about the types of wines that fall into this category will help enormously; you can avoid the nasties and sup on nectar providing you follow a few simple guidelines. Then there's value for money. Some sweet wines are incredibly off-puttingly expensive. The good news is it doesn't have to be so. There are fairly cheap bottles out there that are absolutely fine, so it pays to know which ones will do when mature Sauternes from a top chateau is simply not an option. Now, let's get on with the tips for an altogether sweeter experience.

SWEET WINE

 

TEXTURE OF SWEET WINE

  Much richer and thicker than dry white wines. Expect a honeyed texture, almost viscous. In some very rich and particularly mature pudding wines, the texture can be quite  treacley.

APPEARANCE OF SWEET WINE

the majority of dessert wines, including those from Bordeaux, the Loire, German and Austrian Rieslings, are a deep, bright-gold colour - some more deep in colour than others. A few pudding wines are ruddy red or mahogany brown 

 

SWEET WINE

AROMA OF SWEET WINE

 Some have pronounced floral scents: for example, jasmine is typical of Muscat. The aroma is fruity, too; apricot and peach, lemon and orange are common. You may notice a toffee note, or sometimes a nutty one.

 

FLAVOUR OF SWEET WINE

More apricot, plenty of honey, beeswax, barley sugar, preserved lemons and quinces, with a crisp, clean finish. That's in the good ones, anyway. Poor examples are simple concoctions of sugar and acid.