Dessert Wines - Which is Yours?

my first dessert wine was a half bottle of Chateau Guiraud, I dont even remember the vintage.

Has 2001 vintage of that last night (at a tasting of assorted 2001 vintage wines).

Very nice -- and youthful.

[Why does the alcohol level of 14%+ seem to occur only in Sauternes and not in other botrytis-afflicted wines? Such appears to be the case, in my limited experience.

I think it has to do with the level of sugar in the must. When you're at the BA and especially the TBA level, or a Tokaji aszu, you've got an environment so acidic and osmotically hostile that yeasts can barely survive. After the alcohol level gets up to 5-6%, on top of the other problems, the yeasts decide to form spores and wait for something better to come along. I don't think the must from which Sauternes is made is either as acidic or of such high specific gravity.

-Paul W.

Hi Ron,

I have two dessert wines that I really prefer over others. Banyuls for its chocolate friendliness and overall flavor profile. Perhaps my favorite sticky is riesling icewine. We have lots to choose from here in Ontario and it ranges from good to excellent wine. I have been known to drink a muscat dessert wine or two as well as tawny and LBV port.

The dessert wines I collect most often are German Auslese wines but I also have some Sauternes. I like Port (favoring Tawny Port) and Maury and Banyuls. Love German Eiswein but the prices have escalated too much. I used to be able to afford it when I lived in Germany.

Sometimes, I think I am a bit strange!

I love the dessert wine (not fortified) with dessert...

The fortified wines, I prefer almost stand alone.... Well, I do always add a little Cream Sherry to my Famous Onion Soup Recipe....
And with Ports.... Its a Cigar and some nuts.

Ports, I love so many different Tawny's.. Vintages when I could afford them. Most memorable was a 1955 Sandeman half bottle.
Since then, its the Taylor Fladgate 20 and 30 year old, which are reasonable priced and nice. My wife loves the Rubys, her favorite is Grahams Six Grapes

The problem with dessert wine WITH dessert is that the sugar levels often don't match. I generally stagger the delivery. That is, I may serve the Sauternes before I torch the creme brulee so that people can taste the wine before the dessert arrives.

I like port with nuts, dates, figs, cheese, candied apricots, etc.

Perhaps contrary to most on this board, I don't really consider Riesling Auslese to be dessert wine. It is main-course wine merely waiting to be cellared long enough.
Tokaji, Eiswein, Quarts de Chaume, 19th century Madeira, TBA, VT and SGN, Ausbruch, Maury, Jurancon, and Port are all wines that I've made friends with. To be honest though, I buy more of them than I tend to open. I generally do not like Vin Santo, or Sweet Sherry/Montilla Moriles wines, though I love Fino, Manzanilla, Amontillado and Palo Cortado sherry and also Vin Jaune. I don't buy Sauternes, but enjoy it if it generously comes my way.

Cheers,
Bill

Bill,

I don't think most here would consider Auslese dessert wine. BA and TBA, yes, but not Auslese. I like it as an aperitif.

Agreed. I think the only conversation was about BA and TBA masquerading as Auslese in some of the recent vintages.

There is a very inferior copycat product marketed in the USA called "Sauterne" (without the 's' on the end), but I don't think that is what you were talking about here.
-Paul W.

I recall many years ago drinking a bottle that was labeled Montel Sauturne. It was wine, but probably only just, and very sweet. The grapes that went into it were unspecified, there was probably a lot of tap water in the mix, as well as a boat load of sugar. We STILL have people selling Montel Sauturne in 3li bag-in-box product. It is still sweet and syrupy, but at $NZ15-20 for 3li I suspect the supermarkets sell quite a lot of it.

And spell checker---or even worse, the dreaded 'autocorrect' has put me in dicey situations before (like, for instance, the way my own name gets autocorrected).

Hoke, if you add your name to your dictionary it will stop this sort of thing happening.

[David M. Bueker]

Agreed. I think the only conversation was about BA and TBA masquerading as Auslese in some of the recent vintages.

That's the key. When an auslese is harvested at 150 degrees oeschle or more (high BA level or into TBA) you do not end up with something that will work with a meal, expect perhaps a cheese course a long way down the road. These supercharged wines have been a frequent occurrence of late. I had a 2006 Kabinett that was harvested at BA levels of oeschle, and could never have worked for anything other than sipping on its own, or perhaps some soft cheeses.

I had a 2006 Kabinett that was harvested at BA levels of oeschle

That sounds brutal. Woe is the person who bought that wine expecting a zippy delicate drink to serve with a light fish course!

I know I am odd (of course, that's been obvious for quite some time) but I have never been able to form a proper appreciation for sweet wines. The one exception is a good port. But I also tend to drink my port by itself or perhaps with some stilton or similar cheese. Somehow loading a sweet wine on top of a sweet desert is overkill to me. But I think that is caused by the fact that I am not all that fond of sweet wines generally. Of course none of this has any meaning whatsoever other than there are all the more sweet wines available to those who do appreciate them.

Glenn

Which Kabinett was that?

I know not all Ausleses are meant to be dessert wines, but my take on it is - if the producer packages it primarily in half-bottles then it's a dessert wine.

I know not all Ausleses are meant to be dessert wines, but my take on it is - if the producer packages it primarily in half-bottles then it's a dessert wine.

Unfortunately, the producer is not to be trusted in this regard in Germany. Auslese (outside of the Mosel) is often bottled in 500 or 375ml, and especially in the Pfalz where nearly every vintage Auslese ripeness can be achieved, the Auslese is regularly not sweet enough to be considered dessert wine (IMO). Maybe minimum residual sugar in relation to maximum acidity regulations have to be inacted coupled with new 'dessert-wine' legislation standards. Then we could label them 2010 Dr. Schloß Bürokratie Forster Pechstein Riesling Auslese Nachtischwein.

Cheers,
Bill

[David M. Bueker]

Which Kabinett was that?

For your own financial safety I am not going to tell you.

Unless it's Egon Muller, I don't see how Kabinetts are a risk to financial safety...

[David M. Bueker]

Unless it's Egon Muller, I don't see how Kabinetts are a risk to financial safety...

Your lack of restraint is a risk to financial safety.

Unless it's Egon Muller, I don't see how Kabinetts are a risk to financial safety...

Your lack of restraint is a risk to financial safety.

I thought we needed more consumer spending to boost the financial security of the country!

I think using sulfite (sulfur) to stop fermentation is a particularly bad idea. For one thing, it doesn't usually work unless used in quantities that makes the wine undrinkable.

[David M. Bueker]

Unless it's Egon Muller, I don't see how Kabinetts are a risk to financial safety...

Your lack of restraint is a risk to financial safety.

I thought we needed more consumer spending to boost the financial security of the country!

Don't worry, he is doing his part (as am I).