1/5/2024 0 Comments Sweet wines redWines with more than 30 grams of residual sugar per litre are said to be ‘sweet.’īut sometimes your senses will actually trick you into thinking a wine is sweeter than it is. Sweetness is really important for a wine’s structure.Ī wine’s sweetness is measured by its residual sugar - that’s just a fancy way of saying the sugar that’s leftover at the end of the fermentation process. In this article, we’ll be talking about Port, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Moscato, White Port and Sherry.īut first, here’s a quick explanation of what makes sweet wine so sweet. We reckon when you get to know these little beauties you’re bound to agree - these wines are ‘sweet as!’ And, we’ll suggest some foods that match perfectly with each wine. We’re going to give you a quick rundown of the most popular sweet wines. In reality, sweet wines are really delicious - they’re fantastic before dinner, to drink with dinner or to even have as a dessert. “It’s more about the conditions where the grapes grow - if you can leave them on the vine without them rotting and if there’s a cool windy climate where you can dry them on straws,” says Harding.Sweet wines deserve a lot more love than they get. People often make the mistake of thinking sweet wine is too sweet, or even that they contain added sugar. Technique and a winemaker’s discretion play a major role in the creation of these types of sweet red wines, but like with most instances of viticulture, it’s the climate and the terroir that help these wines develop their tastes. Schiava, an Italian grape from Alto-Adige, naturally offers plenty of sweet red fruit and cotton candy nuances. Brachetto grapes from Piedmont are also used this way to make lusciously sweet and fruit-forward wines. Made from the local grapes Corvina, Rondinella, and Corvinone, with some Oseleta and Negrara, it’s full of fig, dried cherry, and spice characteristics. So Sagrantino Passito has to be kind of expensive,” Tardi adds.Īnother classic Italian passito wine is Recioto della Valpolicella from Valpolicella. And right off the bat, you lose about 30% of the volume of juice the grapes would create if it were going to be a regular wine, just because they lose so much of the moisture. “Sagrantino Passito tends to be a little pricey just because the procedure of making them is very, very time-consuming. That particular sweet style of red wine comes with a warning, though. It has these earthy components to it, and it’s more bitter by nature, which really helps balance out the sweetness,” says Tardi. However, in Italy, sweet wines can be made either with white or red grapes such as Sagrantino, a deep black grape commonly found in Montefalco in Umbria. Winemakers in countries like Greece and Germany typically use various white grapes to make straw wines. But they have acidity and an edginess that’s quite enjoyable.” “They have incredible density, and the texture of these wines is almost like syrup or a honey-like texture. They did this to make wines like Passito or Recioto, and there’s a lot of sweetness to these wines,” Tardi continues. “Italians would harvest parts of the grape cluster and have them go through this extended drying period so that the grapes would lose a lot of moisture. “That’s an ancient technique,” says Alan Tardi CSW, author of “ Champagne, Uncorked: The House of Krug and the Timeless Allure of the World’s Most Celebrated Drink ” and the James Beard Award-winning “ Romancing the Vine : Life, Love, and Transformation in the Vineyards of Barolo. As the water inside the grapes evaporates, the fruit shrivels and begins to turn into a raisin, and concentrates the sugars inside.īy allowing the grapes to dry out, the natural moisture in the fruit diminishes and leaves behind a high sugar content, which, in turn, increases the sugar level in the wine during fermentation. It can also be done on special racks or in the sun. In many places, this was traditionally done on straw mats, resulting in the wines being called straw wines, though in Italy the name is the passito method. An example would be the rich and plummy Primitivo di Manduria Dolce Naturale from Puglia.Īnother technique involves drying the grapes the winemakers pick the grapes and lay them out to dry. They are known as late harvest wines, or Vendemmia Tardiva. To the northwest of Asti in Piedmont, winemakers will stop fermentation of Malvasia di Schierano grapes to make the sweet, low-alcohol Malvasia di Castelnuovo don Bosco, which is found in still and sparkling styles.Īnother way to produce sweet wines is to let grapes hang on the vine for longer than normal as the grapes begin to dehydrate, the sugar within them becomes concentrated. Sometimes, it’s as simple as stopping fermentation early so that the grapes retain a higher level of natural sugars. There are different ways to make sweet red wines.
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