Wednesday 24 june 2009
If you want to learn about sweet wine there is plenty of information on this site just for you, especially on sweet wine for beginners. Sweet wine is
becoming increasingly popular today and for the beginners, a heavy red table wine can equate to the effect of sucking a lemon. Your experience won't be a pleasant one if you start drinking dry
wines right away.
The best way to learn is to start sweet and progress toward drier wines with time. While there is sweet red wine available, dessert wine is a more common sweet white wine for beginners. While they can be a little pricier than other options dessert wines will help develop your palate. Sweet is the easiest taste to get down and can provide an easy transition to more tannic wines down the road.
The secret to the success of dessert wine is residual sugar. Residual sugar is the natural sugar leftover in the wine after fermentation. Fermentation is the process of converting sugar to alcohol by adding yeast to wine. The longer a wine is permitted to ferment, the more sugar is converted and the higher the alcohol content will be in the wine. It will also be drier as there is little to no sugar left. But for sweet wine, sugars are not permitted to ferment entirely which leaves residual sugar behind.
Sometimes sugar is added after fermentation to balance any acidity present. Acidity is a common characteristic in most white wines. Sometimes residual sugar comes from picking grapes at a later than normal harvest time, allowing the grapes to ripen further. With late harvest grapes there is less water, which makes for more concentrated sugars. Late-harvest wine is the most common sweet white wine. One popular variety is "ice wine", made from grapes frozen on the vine.
Port, Sherry, Madeira, Sauternes, most German wine like Riesling and Auslese are other sweet wines that every wine newbie should look to start their journey into sweet wine.
Vin Santo is one of Italy’s most famous dessert wines. It is made in a special process where grapes are hung on hooks to dry under a wineries very hot roof, even with ventilation present. The drying process transforms the grapes into raisins where they are crushed and fermented in small oak barrels for long periods of time. Vin Santo creates an amber color dessert wine that tastes and smells like fruitcake.
Sweet wine is growing in popularity. In my next post I will cover choosing the right sweet wine for any occasion.
The best way to learn is to start sweet and progress toward drier wines with time. While there is sweet red wine available, dessert wine is a more common sweet white wine for beginners. While they can be a little pricier than other options dessert wines will help develop your palate. Sweet is the easiest taste to get down and can provide an easy transition to more tannic wines down the road.
The secret to the success of dessert wine is residual sugar. Residual sugar is the natural sugar leftover in the wine after fermentation. Fermentation is the process of converting sugar to alcohol by adding yeast to wine. The longer a wine is permitted to ferment, the more sugar is converted and the higher the alcohol content will be in the wine. It will also be drier as there is little to no sugar left. But for sweet wine, sugars are not permitted to ferment entirely which leaves residual sugar behind.
Sometimes sugar is added after fermentation to balance any acidity present. Acidity is a common characteristic in most white wines. Sometimes residual sugar comes from picking grapes at a later than normal harvest time, allowing the grapes to ripen further. With late harvest grapes there is less water, which makes for more concentrated sugars. Late-harvest wine is the most common sweet white wine. One popular variety is "ice wine", made from grapes frozen on the vine.
Port, Sherry, Madeira, Sauternes, most German wine like Riesling and Auslese are other sweet wines that every wine newbie should look to start their journey into sweet wine.
Vin Santo is one of Italy’s most famous dessert wines. It is made in a special process where grapes are hung on hooks to dry under a wineries very hot roof, even with ventilation present. The drying process transforms the grapes into raisins where they are crushed and fermented in small oak barrels for long periods of time. Vin Santo creates an amber color dessert wine that tastes and smells like fruitcake.
Sweet wine is growing in popularity. In my next post I will cover choosing the right sweet wine for any occasion.
