Sweet Wine

While sweet wines aren’t made exclusively for enjoying with dessert, most of them shine in that context. Indeed some are so lavishly high in residual sugar that they serve as a dessert in their own right – or as a glorious accompaniment to cheeses. While such fare is found right across the wine world, from the famous Tokajis of Hungary to the historic Vin de Constance of South Africa, arguably the most renowned are the Sauternes of Bordeaux, where production harnesses the so-called ‘noble rot’, or botrytis, of the grapes to concentrate the sugars and deliver a wonderfully intensity. France’s other great haven for ‘stickies’ is the Loire Valley, where similar late-harvest techniques are employed, notably in such appellations as Coteaux de Layon and Vouvray. In Germany, meanwhile, Riesling is harnessed to yield wonderfully light, delicate wines, often by stopping the fermentation midway through, before all the sugar is converted to alcohol, thereby producing captivating sweetness at a lower level of alcohol.