Dessert wines

Dessert wine - popular and delicate

The history of sweet wine begins deep in antiquity. A Cypriot raisin wine called Passum was one of the most popular drinks in its day. Also in the medieval noble and ruling houses were considered Sweet wine as a delicate luxury. The great voyages of discovery at the beginning of the modern era also contributed to the spread of these wines - as durable provisions for the long sea voyages, port wine, sherry, Sauternes and Vin Santo experienced their triumphal procession. 

Sweet wine - high residual sugar content and high must weights.

According to EU wine legislation, wines with a residual sugar content of at least 45 g/l are considered sweet; for sparkling wine this value is at least 50 g/l. In some varieties, the sugar content is significantly higher than these limits, in the case of Tokaj. Eszencia - a Hungarian Dessert wine - it reaches values of over 450 g/l. The prerequisite for the production of sweet wines is a high must weight or a corresponding sugar concentration in the berries. They are pressed, for example, from highly ripe or noble rotten grapes. Very high-quality sweet wine specialties include straw wines, such as the Italian Recioto, or local Trockenbeerenauslesen, which are also among the top international wines. No sugar may be added to quality and Prädikat wines of this class after fermentation.

Sweet wines - naturally sweet or fortified

Sweet wines are sometimes marketed as naturally sweet wines without any artificial intervention in the fermentation process; these include, for example, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese, straw wine or ice wine. Other versions - such as Madeira, Malaga, Port or Sherry - are fortified, which increases their alcohol content but also ends the fermentation process prematurely.