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Sweet wine
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Late harvest, noble rot, frozen and dried grapes, from Sauternes and Tokaj to Eiswein, Recioto and Vin Santo.
All levels110 min16 stepsAbout Sweet Wine Production Methods
Part of Winemaking
Start with the methods for keeping grape sugar in a finished wine: late harvest, noble rot, frozen grapes, dried grapes, fortification, and added sweetness.
Late harvest first: leaving grapes on the vine and picking them much later lets them shrivel as water evaporates, concentrating sugar, acid and flavour.
German Prädikatswein Classification
Germany grades that ripeness in six Prädikat levels, from Kabinett to Trockenbeerenauslese, each with its own minimum must weight in degrees Oechsle.
Noble rot, the beneficial form of Botrytis cinerea, shrivels ripe grapes and concentrates their acids, sugars and flavours for sweet wine.
Botrytis Selection: Tries Successives (Multiple Passes)
Harvesting it takes handpicking in several passes through the vineyard, picking only the fruit the rot has reached.
In Sauternes, autumn mists where the cold Ciron meets the warmer Garonne encourage noble rot.
Tokaj in northeast Hungary, delimited in 1737, where Decanter's 2018 guide gives Furmint the largest share, 69%, of the permitted varieties.
Its Tokaji Aszú soaks hand-picked, noble-rot-shrivelled berries in must or wine, and since the 2013 rule change every Tokaji Aszú must carry at least 120 g/L of residual sugar.
Compare the two botrytised sweet whites shaped by river mists, Tokaj led by Furmint and Sauternes led by Sémillon.
Eiswein: Naturally Frozen Grape Wine
Frost instead of rot: Eiswein comes from grapes frozen on the vine and harvested at -7°C or colder.
Cryoextraction for Late Harvest Concentration
Cryoextraction freezes harvested grapes artificially, which German law does not allow for Eiswein.
Dried grapes: appassimento dries harvested grapes before fermentation, concentrating their sugar and flavor, with acidity concentrating too, though more slowly.
Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG
Recioto della Valpolicella dries its grapes in fruttai, builds on Corvina Veronese and/or Corvinone at 45% to 95%, and arrests fermentation before it finishes, keeping residual sugar that starts at around 50 g/L.
That stopping point, in detail: chilling the wine near freezing, then filtering or centrifuging out the yeast so fermentation cannot restart, without adding spirit.
Vin Santo del Chianti Classico Tradition
Tuscany's Vin Santo dries Trebbiano and Malvasia, then ages at least three years in small caratelli barrels.
Vin de Paille: Jura's Straw Wine
Close in the Jura with Vin de Paille, from grapes dried off the vine for at least six weeks on straw, on racks, or hanging.
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