Sweet Wine
Fine sweet wines are an extremely luxurious way to end a meal, they taste delightful on their own and can pair perfectly with sweet desserts and mature cheeses. The finest examples have high levels of acidity to balance the high sugar levels and can age in the bottle over many years. There are various styles produced around the world which use different techniques, all involve concentrating the grape sugars on the vine, before the grapes are picked so there are high levels remaining in the final wine even after fermentation, as the yeast is unable to convent all the sugar to alcohol. This can involve leaving the grapes hang on the vine for more time for extra ripening (late harvest). It can involve botrytis/noble rot which is a fungus that attaches to ripe, healthy grapes in certain conditions (damp misty morning and warm dry afternoons) and causes the water inside to evaporate thus concentrating the sugars – this is the method used for famous sweet wines of Sauternes (Bordeaux, France) and Tokaji (Hungary). Another more extreme method of concentrating sugars is to use frozen grapes. Ice crystals and grape skins are separated from the intensely sweet unfrozen liquid in the press. The resulting ice wine is intensely sweet balanced with high acidity and pure fruit flavours.
