Dessert wine's sweetness makes it perfect for a last course
Just like table wines, there are many different varieties of dessert wine. These wines are sweeter than their table-wine counterparts, having between 3 and 28 percent residual sugar content, according to All-About-Wine.com. This sweetness makes dessert wine an excellent accompaniment to whatever delicious confection you are serving to round out a perfect meal.
Late Harvest
Late-harvest wine is made from grapes purposely left to overripen on the vine. This process of "raisining" increases the sugar level and decreases the juice level. The result is a very concentrated sweet juice that is turned into a dessert wine. Many varietals are used to produce late-harvest wine.
Ice Wine
Like late-harvest wines, ice wines are produced from grapes that have overripened until their juices are concentrated and sweet. However, ice wines use grapes that are picked and crushed immediately after a frost. The water in the grape is frozen, allowing the winemaker to separate out the pure, concentrated nectar. Ice wines are very sweet and typically produced in colder regions.
Fortified Wine
To make fortified wines, additional alcohol is added to an ordinary wine in the form of spirits. Port, Madeira and sherry are all examples of fortified wines. The addition of spirits help these wines to last longer once opened, and the higher alcohol level usually means these wines are consumed in smaller quantities.
Gewurztraminer
Gewurztraminer, from France's Alsace region, is naturally more sweet than other table wines. Though they are not exclusively dessert wines, Gewurztraminer pairs well with fruity desserts such as pies and clafoutis, a baked French dessert consisting of black cherries in a buttered dish, covered with a thick batter.
Other Varieties
Some other wines that are sometimes used as dessert wines include muscat and Semillon. Muscat and Semillon gain sweetness through a process known as "noble rot," where a fungal organism called Botrytis cinerea causes ripe grapes to shrivel and yield a sweet, concentrated juice.
Tags: dessert wine, concentrated sweet, dessert wines, fortified wines, from grapes
