Types of Sweet Wines


The best sweet wines are made in one of two ways. One way is to dehydrate the grapes and reduce their water content and concentrate the sugars. A second way is to boost the alcohol as is done to make fortified wines such as Port and Sherry. The following is background on the these types of wines:

• Botrytis - In the common vernacular this is Noble Rot, a fungus that is a disaster for wine growers trying to make a dry table wine. However, it produces a sigh of relief for those trying to make sweet wines. Essentially, the botrytis cineria is a spore-like fungus that attack healthy grape clusters in the late autumn and grows, feeding on the grape's sugars. Damp nights and warming days helps to dry the grapes and prevents total decomposition. The resulting epitome can be found in those marvelous Sauternes from Bordeaux (Think Chateau d'Yquem), the Tokaji from Hungary, and the Auslese or Beerenauslese from Germany's Rheingau.
• Eiswein - German for Ice Wine these wines are made from frozen grapes. These grapes are picked during a hard frost and frozen. When the frozen orbs are pressed the sugar concentrated juices are separated from the grape's icy water. Because grapes for Eiswein's are picked very late in the season while waiting for winter's chill, the grapes are very ripe and produces captivating sweet white wines with extracted fruit and high acidity that make them excellent with food. Eisweins are also produced in Canada and Austria.
• Late Harvests - Simply, grapes are left on the vines in the late autumn to ripen to their fullest. The grape clusters can be left to dry on the vines, picked and dried indoors or just laid down on the vineyard ground to shrivel in the sun and do their best impression of a raisin. Late Harvest wines are not usually as complex as Noble Rot or Eisweins but they are full of sticky honey, deep fruit flavors, and floral bouquets.
• Fortified Wines - Neutral grape spirits such as brandy are added to the wines during fermentation which arrests the process, kills the sugar consuming yeast, and holds the RS level while giving the wine an alcohol boost upwards to 18-20%. A small glass of a fortified wine goes a long way. Examples of this process are Port from Portugal and Banyuls, Muscat de St. Jean de Minervois, and Maury from France's Languedoc-Roussillon region.
• Types of Grapes
  • Sémillon (Primary grape for Bordeaux Sauternes)
  • Viognier
  • Chardonnay
  • Chenin Blanc (Vouvray and Savennières-Loire Valley)
  • Riesling (Alsace and Rheingau)
  • Gewürtztraminer (Alsace and Rheingau)
  • Muscat/Moscato (Moscato d'Asti, Muscat d'Alsace, Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, Muscat Cannelli)
  • Trebbiano (Vin Santo-Tuscany)
  • Furmint (Primary grape for Hungary's Tokaji Aszú)
  • Grenache (Banyuls, Maury)
  • Zinfandel (Late Harvest Zinfandel/California)

from: http://wine.lovetoknow.com