"sweet wine" news and stories

Pop quiz: Is Riesling dry or sweet?

Answer: Both. Confusing? You bet. One of the cool things about Riesling, Germany's most famous varietal, is its versatility in wines ranging from refreshingly dry to nobly sweet. But one of the uncool things about Riesling is that you don't necessarily know whether the bottle you're eying will be bone dry, sickeningly sweet, or somewhere in between.

Some producers already label their offerings "dry" or "sweet," but those terms are fairly relative. Enter the Riesling Taste Profile, a technical chart of parameters defining the categories Dry, Medium Dry, Medium Sweet, and Sweet. The label is strictly optional, though, and it may be some time before producers begin to adopt it.

In the meantime, here's an easy rule of thumb to follow when you're trying to figure out how sweet or dry a Riesling will be: look at the alcohol percentage. A low percentage (8-10) means the wine will be sweeter. A higher percentage (12-12.5) means the wine will be drier. Why? Sugar converts to alcohol in the fermentation process. The more sugar that's converted, the higher the alcohol will be and the lower the sugar.

I personally dig dry Riesling for its refreshing acidity, gorgeous fruit and honey aromas, and versatility with food, but the rest of my family wouldn't ever pass up a late-harvest dessert Riesling. Which do you like better--sweet or dry?

Source

Dessert wines are fascinating to me, not only for their scrumptious sweet tastes, but also for the many complicated and unusual ways in which they are made. Most, but not all dessert wines tend to be higher in alcohol than regular wines. This is due to the large amount of sugars in the fresh juice, the more sugar, the greater the final alcohol levels produced during fermentation.

In taste these wines have a bold array of flavors like honey, apricot, peach, tropical fruit, caramel, dates, raisins, citrus, berries, floral notes, and much more. In body they progress from thin, light and barely sweet; to syrupy thick, sugar bombs. In color they run the spectrum from pale white to deep gold and light rose to orange and deep red. In style they can be still wines, slightly fizzy, or super bubbly tongue tinglers.

I use the term dessert wine to describe all wines that are mid to high quality, sweet wines that tend to be drunk after dinner or with dessert, or more appropriately as dessert, since many sweet wines actually don't go well when paired with sweet foods. Sweet and dessert wines have been around since the early days of the Roman Empire, some say even longer. They may have been the first wines that traveled outside the region in which they were made. This is because many of them have higher alcohol levels, as well as the large amounts of sugars; both of which when combined help to make wines age and travel well.