Save Room for Dessert Wines

Don’t overlook the sweet stuff. You’ll fall in love with the ones that are made well. Is it that we drink too much, too fast, with dinner? So when we get to dessert, coffee seems like the only reasonable beverage option? If so, we need to learn to pace ourselves, because we’re missing out on dessert wines.

Sommeliers see it all the time: Guests are reluctant to order dessert wines but fall in love when they do get them. In fact, one of my favorite things about a set wine pairing is that at the end of the meal it puts a sweet wine in front of guests who wouldn’t normally have ordered one. But whether they’re paired with dessert or enjoyed in its stead (or afterward), sweet wines are often neglected gems.

The reason is most people just assume the worst. But great sweet wines are rich but not cloying; the sugars have been concentrated but so has the acidity, so the sweetness finishes cleanly. It’s unfair to dismiss sweet wines of certain grapes or places, because there are several ways the wines can achieve this balance.

Sometimes it’s just the right grape in the right climate; the mildly sweet Vendange Tardive wines of Alsace are simply picked later, so the grapes have extra sugar. Fortunately the long, cool growing season helps the local Pinot Gris, Riesling and Gewurztraminer hold on to their acidity more than other varieties would.

Wines like Sauternes and Tokaji achieve their concentration with the help of a fungus called botrytis cinerea. The grapes look like a fuzzy mess on the vine, but the botrytis, more elegantly known as “noble rot,” allows water to escape from within the grape, while the acidity, sugars and flavors remain behind.

Tokaji wines, from Hungary, were the toast of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries but suffered greatly under communism; investment in the past two decades has brought it back to life.

There are two other, somewhat opposite ways to get that pesky water out of the grapes: freezing them or letting them dry into raisins in the heat. Canada has made a virtue of its cold winters and dominates the ice wine market; in China these wines are so coveted that fraudulent versions have become a serious problem.

Italy’s Recioto wines are a good example of the resonated versions, and one of the few places to get a sweet wine made from red grapes at an alcohol level akin to that of table wines, about 13 percent.