In Defence of Sweet Wines

Whenever I am offered a glass of sweet wine during a dinner, I am reminded of how much I love them. And why I don’t drink them as often as I would like despite having many bottles languishing in my own cellar.

Sweet wines can accompany a wide range of palates and plates.

Let’s start from the top - the most sought after sweet wine, Château d'Yquem from the Sauternes region of Bordeaux. A half bottle, 375ml, is available at the LCBO for $563. Full bottles, which are harder to come by and can age for decades, command much higher prices, especially at auction.

A magnum sized bottle, or 1.5L, of 1995 Château d'Yquem recently sold for $2,280 this month at Waddington’s auction house in Toronto.

Chateau d’Yquem is not the only wine from Sauternes. There is a wide range of sweet wines from the region made primarily from the grape varieties, sémillon, sauvignon blanc, and muscadelle which have been affected by Botrytis cinerea, or "noble rot”.

This noble rot which, happens naturally in the vineyard, concentrates the sugars and flavours in the grapes, leading to the wine's signature sweetness and honeyed apricot notes. 

Botrytis affected wines can be found all over the world and are made from a variety of grapes.

These are different from late-harvest wines which are made from grapes that are harvested later in the season, allowing more sugar to accumulate. The alcoholic fermentation is stopped, usually with the addition of sulphur, and the remaining sugar is left in a wine with lower alcohol, usually around 10%. In some colder regions, if the grapes are left long enough, you will get ice wine.

Port is another classic sweet wine with a varied range of qualities and styles. Port is a fortified wine in which the alcoholic fermentation is arrested with the addition of brandy. The resulting juxtaposition is that the wine is both sweet, often with 100 grams of sugar per litre, and highly alcoholic, coming in at about 20%.

At the top end, vintage port is made only in years when the  producers of the region deem the growing conditions to have been outstanding.

There are also tawny, ruby and coheita port styles. Some are made to be aged, such as vintage, while others are made to be consumed upon release such as tawny and ruby styles. Coheita ports are vintage dated tawny ports rather than the 10, 20 or year 40 blended tawny styles. Both are aged in wood which help oxidize the wine and make it tawny in colour. Whereas a ruby style spends less time in oak and retains it ruby colour.

Another fortified wine is sherry. Sherry ranges from dry, such as fino sherry, to very sweet such as Pedro Ximénez. With a wide range of quality and styles, sherry’s tastes reach far beyond your grandmother’s glass. And if your grandmother is drinking sherry - well, she’s got great taste.

These are only a few of the sweet wine styles available. There are also some bubbly versions such as Moscato d’Asti and sweet sparkling Lambruscos, straw wines such as Recioto della Valpolicella and Vin Santo from Tuscany, or wines that have been cooked in the sun such as Madeira.

As the days get cooler, the option for a sweet wine at the end of a meal could be the perfect tipple to pair with the sunset.