Dessert Wine Staff Training

DESSERT WINE STAFF TRAINING From the early modern period in Europe through the Age of Reason, the favored wines of courts and kings were sweet. Sugar was an important preservative in an era before the dawn of fast transit, and lush, luxuri- ous liquids like Tokaji, sweet German Riesling, and Sauternes may have recalled an earlier era, when sugar was an exotic, expensive spice. Today, dessert wines are an afterthought. Sugar is no longer an exotic temptation; it’s a guilty indulgence. The taste of sweetness is everywhere. Restaurant guests “couldn’t possibly”; dessert menus go unread, and those back pages of the wine list remain buried. Dessert wine sales are harder than ever to make and often require active suggestion from the server or sommelier. Quality dessert wines are among the most time- and cost-intensive wines to make. The efort required to produce sweet wines for a diminishing audience makes them real labors of love for winemakers. Yet we are programmed to love the taste of sugar! We talk dry—but drink sweet! Tasting great sweet wines is a trans- porting experience; the best are among the world’s most cellar-worthy and complex beverages. They often last a few days longer than dry wines once opened. And they raise check averages. Sweet! How are Sweet Wines Made? Ripe grapes contain a lot of sugar! All wines therefore have the potential to be sweet, but most are vinifed to near or complete dryness. If a winemaker wants to make a sweet wine, he/she has two options in fermentation: 1. Stop Fermentation while the must still contains signifcant residual sugar. 2. Add sugar back after the wine has fermented to dryness. Most classic sweet wines of the world follow the frst path, in which the winemaker halts fermentation through some means. Depending on wine style, the main options are: 1. The wine is fortifed with high-proof spirit, which immediately halts yeast activity and preserves natural sugar. 2. The wine is chilled to a temperature at which yeast activity ceases, and is then fltered to remove yeasts, preserving natural sugar. 3. The wine is chilled to a temperature at which yeast activity ceases, and the winemaker adds SO2, an antimicrobial agent, to eliminate the possibility of re-fermentation. This is often done in conjunction with option #2. 2 Preserving Sweetness by Concentrating Sugar The world’s greatest unfortifed dessert wines result from an increase in natural sugar content through dehydration and/or prolonged ripening. Such techniques allow winemakers to preserve intense sweetness while still attaining reasonably high degrees of alcohol during fermentation. And while prolong- ing ripening reduces acidity, concentration through some means of dehydration actually increases the wine’s fnal acidity, relative to the diminished level of water remaining in the grape. Of course, all forms of concentration inevitably invite risk and lower fnal yields, raising prices. 1. Late-Harvested Grapes: The simplest technique of concentrating sugars is simply to leave the grapes on the vine! Many dessert wines are the product of late-harvested grapes. Grapes that hang on the vine may become subject to natural dehydration or botrytis, or they may remain pure. 2. Dried Grapes: Most European cultures maintain some tradition of partially drying grapes after harvest, shriveling berries prior to fermentation. This ancient tradition is strongest today in Italy, where it is responsible for passito and recioto styles throughout the country. 3. Botrytis-Afected Grapes: In humid climates, grapes destined for sweet wines may be attacked by a benefcial mold, Botrytis cinerea, which dehydrates the grape and concentrates sugars. (In some “New World” areas it is not uncommon for producers to inoculate their fruit with botrytis spores if the fungus does not develop naturally.) 4. Frozen Grapes: Grapes are literally frozen, on or of the vine, to decrease water content and increase sugar and other soluble solids. Botrytis-afected Pinot Gris cluster in Alsace. Vidal grapes. 3 Structure in Sweet Wines Sweetness is clearly the most important structural feature in sweet wines, but the actual amount of sugar in dessert wines can vary greatly! The amount of residual sugar in wine is typically documented in one of two ways: in grams per liter of liquid or as a percentage of weight to volume. The conversion is pretty easy: 1 gram/liter of residual sugar equals 0.1%. Dry wines typically have less than 4 g/l (0.4%) of residual sugar. Of-dry wines generally have less than 20 g/l (2%), while many dessert wines have 100 g/l (10%) of residual sugar or more. Exceptional- ly sweet, ambrosial examples can reach 350 g/l (35%) or higher. More residual sugar certainly makes the wine sweeter, but it also impacts weight and mouthfeel, making the wine feel denser, heavier, and full-bodied. In this guide, dessert wines are categorized as: • Medium Sweet: 60-125 g/l • Sweet: 125-175 g/l • Luscious: 175 g/l or more Acidity is an important balancing agent in sweet wines. Higher acidity keeps sweet wines from feeling cloying and syrupy by giving them freshness and life. 20 g/l of residual sugar in a low-acid white wine can feel ponderous, clumpy and docile, while the same level of residual sugar in a high-acid white like Riesling may produce a fresher, fruitier wine. The world’s best dessert wines are invariably those with high levels of acidity. In fact, the world’s best sugary drinks are usually pretty high in acid—think of the pleasant tartness of good lemonade or the bite of cola. Alcohol in sweet wines can range from 5% in light semi-sparkling Moscato d’Asti wines to 19% or higher in fortifed wines like Port and Madeira. Alcohol contributes body and power to the wine, and its presence or lack thereof can be a defning feature. A low-alcohol, light-bodied dessert wine provides a stimulating, spritely refresher at the end of the meal, while a high-alcohol wine can be contemplative and profound. Remember, however, that the sweetest unfortifed, weightiest wines in the world can be very low in alcohol—the concentration of sugar in the wine adds body in its place. Many dessert wines are the product of white grapes, but not all. Tannin can be a factor in wines like young vintage Port or red passito wines, although sweetness helps to mitigate the astringency of tannin. 4 Color in Sweet Wines If you don’t know anything else about a sweet wine at hand, color alone is a great clue to style. Amber and tawny tones in a wine signify a deeply oxidative wine that likely spent a long time in a cask, or even longer in a bottle. Whether it was produced from red or white grapes, it’s now framed by the oxidative favor spectrum: nuts, maple, curry, tofee, and caramel. Bright golden wines without a hint of browning are likely younger late harvest and/or botrytis-afected wines, with attendant favors of fruit, honey and fowers. Vibrant red and purple sweet wines are similarly youthful and more intensely fruity and aromatic than their tawny, faded, more complex cousins. Dark brown, nearly opaque wines are usually produced from dried grapes and often fortifed to boot—these are among the sweetest you will encounter! In a pinch, color can give a basic sense of favor. 5 Late Harvest & Botrytis Late Harvest Wines In Europe and the New World, harvesting fruit late in the season allows a winemaker to produce rich, often aromatic wines of varying degrees of sweetness. In New World coun- tries, one can assume wines labeled “late harvest” will be sweet in style, but this is not necessarily the case in Europe. Wines labeled “Vendange Tardive” in Alsace and “Spätlese” in Germany—both literally mean late harvest—may actually be dry or of-dry in style, even if they are commonly produced as sweeter wines. True dessert wines in Europe often combine late harvests with another technique of concentration. In fact, some of the world’s greatest botrytis and dried grape wines, like German TBA and Italian Recioto della Valpolicella, are harvested before dry wines produced in the same regions! Botrytis Wines At one point in history, someone had to do the courageous thing and try that bit of cheese riddled with veins of blue, or that weird-looking mushroom in the woods. Similar- ly, some brave soul (or worried accountant) decided to make a wine from furry, mold-crusted grapes on the vine. And voilà! One of the world’s great dessert wines styles was born. To make a botrytis-style dessert wine, one must allow a mold, the “noble rot” of Botrytis cinerea, to develop on the skin of grapes shortly before harvest. The capricious rot, which attacks individual grapes rather than whole bunches, dehydrates them. As the grapes lose water the relative amounts of sugar, certain acids, and mouthfeel-giving glycerol are increased. When aficted berries are fermented, the result is a lushly sweet, concentrated, and golden nectar, often perfumed with the scent of safron, ginger, and honey. But it is an expensive and laborious process; true botrytis wines can be amongst the world’s most expensive bottlings. 6 Sauternes The small appellation of Sauternes in Bordeaux is home to some of the world’s greatest botrytis wines, produced from Sémillon, Sauvi- Typical ABV: gnon Blanc, and Muscadelle grapes. Sauternes lies at the confux of the Ciron and Garonne Rivers, where humid autumns provide a 12.5-14.5% perfect incubator for noble rot, and the region’s famous châteaux keep picking teams on hand to make multiple passes through their Typical Residual Sugar: vineyards, plucking only botrytis-afected grapes.

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