Dessert Wine

OUR DESSERTS WINES

The UK's dessert wine market has improved dramatically in recent years. New, more reasonably priced and innovative wines from the New World have meant that it is no longer only those wealthy enough to buy French Sauternes who can enjoy a glass of sweet wine with their dessert. Sales of dessert wines in restaurants can be increased with minimal effort and without affecting sales in other areas.

Things to consider could be :

- Putting details of available dessert wines in the dessert menu
- Including a glass of dessert wine in the price of the dessert
- Making sure staff ask whether a guest would like a glass of dessert wine when they take the dessert order.
- Having samples available to try. Very often people will say "I don't like sweet wines" when they have never tried them. Getting over that hurdle is a big step forward.

DESSERT WINE SERVICE
Offering dessert wines by the glass is probably the best way to introduce them to customers who would not normally try them. A smaller glass is served 50-75ml and the wines should be well chilled. Some people prefer to serve them in frosted glasses which have spent some time in the freezer, but this is not really necessary and very often the frosting has disappeared before they even reach the table.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SWEET WINE
Botrytised Wines
Wines that fall into this category are made with grapes affected by botrytis or noble rot. This is a beneficial grape infection spread by damp, humid conditions that concentrates the sugars and dramatically affects the flavour of the wine. The botrytis affects ripe grapes and consumes the water from the berry by way of microscopic filaments through the pores of the grape skin. This concentrates the sugars, reducing the grape to a shrivelled raisin. Not all the grapes in one bunch will be affected and therefore hand harvesting of the grapes must be carried out. The wines have an extraordinary concentration of sweetness and acidity, with a wonderfully opulent, fat texture.

Auslese
A classification of German wines made from specially selected extra-ripe bunches of grapes. Some of the grapes used may well have been affected by noble rot (The sugar content of grapes when picked should be 83-105 Oe)

Beerenauslese
Wine made from individually selected grapes that have mostly been affected by noble rot (110-128 Oe)

Trockenbeerenauslese
This classification is at the peak of the quality wine system in Germany and wines are only produced in the greatest vintages. The grapes used to make these wines will have been affected so much by noble rot that they appear almost raisin like. The potential alcohol is at least 21.5% volume but these wines often have an alcohol content of less that 8% leaving very high levels of sweetness (150-154 Oe)

Eiswein (Ice Wine)
The grapes used in the making of these wines are frozen on the vine and produce wines with high sugar and acidity without botrytis characteristics. These wines are mainly produced in Germany and Austria.

Fortified
Spirit, usually grape, is added to the grape juice. For Port style wines and Vins Doux Naturel it is usually added during the fermentation which has the affect of stopping the fermentation, because of the increased alcohol level, therefore leaving an amount of residual sugar.

Vins Doux Naturel
literally means, 'natural sweet wines' but the term is used to describe a number of fortified sweet wines from the Southern half of France often made from Muscat or Grenache grapes

Dried Grape Wines
Grapes are left to raisin on the vine or are picked and dried. Italy's Recioto della Valpolicella is an example of a dried grape wine.

Vendange Tardive (Late Harvest)
This is a classification of Alsace wines (the equivalent of the German Beerenauslese) and to qualify the wines must be made from Riesling, Gewurztraminer or Pinot Gris grapes and the must weight (sugar content of the grapes when picked) should be either 95 or 105Oe. The wine can either be dry or medium sweet

Selection de Grain Nobles (Selection of noble grapes)
Similar to Vendange Tardive but the grapes used will have been affected by noble rot and the sugar content of the grapes when picked even higher, 110 or 120Oe. This wine is only made in exceptional vintages and is sweet (the equivalent of the German Trockenbeerenauslese).

FOOD MATCHES
Different dessert wines will compliment different desserts just in the same way that still wines can be matched to foods. New World Late Harvest Stickies are very in your face and can stand up to very sweet, heavy or strongly flavoured desserts where a more subtle Sauternes and other French types would be lost.

EUROPEAN WINE GROWERS DESSERT WINE PORTFOLIO

Brown Brothers Orange Muscat & Flora, Australia
When these two grape varieties are blended together they boast an attractive golden colour and delicious nose exuding flavours of ripe Muscat and fresh orange blossom. The palate is deep,rich and mouthfilling echoing the exuberant fruit flavours of the bouquet and balanced by a clean finish.

Food Matches - Good with all but the very richest desserts
Muscat Beaumes de Venise, South Rhone

Glittering golden colour with slight light pink glints. An outburst of flowery, honey and apricot scented, citrusy aromas. Great finesse and fruit flavours in the mouth and superb balance between acidity and sugar which gives vibrant freshness. Not cloying. very long and majestuous finish

Food Matches - Rich and chocolatey desserts
Quady's Elysium Black Muscat, California

A lightly fortified red dessert wine with aromas of roses and a berry like taste. Rich and full flavoured.

Food Matches - A variety of desserts and blue cheeses
Quady's Essensia Orange Muscat, California

A rich wine with aromas reminiscent of orange blossom. Delicate and finely balanced it is much sought after.

Food Matches - Particularly delicious with chocolate

Chateau La Tour Blanche 

A concentration of dried fruit  displaying a creamy ripeness and exotic fruit flavours, rich and honeyed

Food Matches - More delicately flavoured desserts and Foie Gras

Anakena,Late Harvest, Chile

Viognier and Muscat of Alexandria have been blended to produce this complex and elegant dessert wine, with honey, apricot and floral notes

Food Matches - Excellent with desserts and cheese

Weltevrede Cape Muscat, South Africa

A premier estate bottled, fortified wine with well balanced sweetness and a hint of orange

Food Matches - Good with fruit mousses and cheescakes

Berton Vineyard Reserve Botrytis Semillon

Intense aromas of orange rind, apricots and honey with a beautifully balanced palate of orange, grapefruit and honey and a persistent finish

Food Matches - Excellent with rich puddings or blue cheese

Banyuls - Chapoutier, Languedoc , France

This vineyard purchased three years ago has been cleaned upand is now used to produce the usual bio-dynamic product quality we expect from Chapoutier. This is a seriously delicious if unusual 16.5% dessert red, made from Grenache Noir. Grown on south facing slopes 2000 feet up overlooking the Med near the Spanish border, this is a vin doux naturel. The sweetness therefore, is very delicate and subtle.

Food Matches - perfect to serve with chocolate (or with cheese....... or on its own)