I don’t understand why there are so few articles written about sweet wines, except for articles about madeiras, ports, and sherries. It seems that a number of wine writers veer away from sweet wines and consider aficionados to have “uneducated palates that cannot appreciate the complexity and beauty of dry wines.” That’s exactly what a well-known, very full of himself wine writer commented during a tasting we both attended.
I beg to differ. I can appreciate the complexity and beauty of a dry wine, as well as the lushness and splendor of a well-made dessert wine. My palate is as well-educated as any other older writer’s. I have been drinking very exceptional wines for more than 60 years now, and I have tasted the product of practically every major and most minor winemaking regions in the world, including regions that produce outstanding sweet wines.
A 100% Pedro Ximénez bottle from Spain with its unique aromas of raisins, molasses, and hazelnuts. A Riesling Eiswein from the Mosel. A Muscat de Beaumes de Venise from France. A Malvasia from Italy’s Aeolian Islands. These are all delicious and very seductive. I have bottles from many of them and indulge whenever I feel I need a pick-me-up.
These wines pair beautifully with rich dishes, such as pan-seared foie gras, breast of duck in a black cherry and green peppercorn sauce, and well-aged cheeses. They also taste wonderful with a nice apricot cake covered by chocolate ganache, a raspberry cheesecake, or just a tree-ripened peach. In fact, many times I’ll have a glass of sweet wine at the end of a meal with my espresso instead of pastry.
This question came up recently: what wine does one drink with such rich dishes as a Goose Royal or a Foie Gras? The immediate and most obvious answer was “Sauternes, of course!”
Foie gras can be baked, poached, or made into a pâté or mousse. But the best way is to either grill it over an aromatic hardwood fire or sauté slices until they are seared outside and barely pink in the center, then pairing them with fresh fruit like ripe figs. When you get an unctuous glass of sweet wine, get ready for a taste that’s been called an epicurian dream.
Yes, Sauternes becomes a rich-on-rich match guaranteed to overload the taste buds. I think I have a much better answer: how about a German Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese or even an Eiswein?
The Trockenbeerenauslese is a wine made from grapes dried on the vine and shriveled to raisins by botrytis, just the way Sauternes is made. The “noble rot” concentrates the sugar and flavors of the grape, resulting in a sweet and highly aromatic nectar. The German producers create sweet wines with much more acidity and citric flavors than the French, which helps in cutting through the unctuousness of foie gras.
And I’m not talking about Blue Nun or Liebfraumilch. These are mass produced, low quality, and fairly inexpensive sweet wines that were popular in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Ice wine is created when grapes have been allowed to naturally freeze on the vine. Please note that grapes frozen in a freezer prior to pressing are not considered as making ice wine, though some producers circumvent the industry conventions and call them “iced wines.”
Ice wine is a relatively rare wine and is produced in climates where an early frost can be expected in late October or November in the northern hemisphere.
New York State has this kind of climate, and Dr. Dan Damianos at Pindar Vineyards on the North Fork of Long Island makes a good example. It’s readily available in the New York market. The Canadian Quebec region in the East, as well as the Okanagan Valley in British Colombia, also produce exceptional sweet wines.
But I think if you are willing to spend the money, the German sweet wine variety is superior, and many of the current outstanding vintages deliver concentrated flavors of peaches, apricots, and spicy minerality.
An excellent possibility is an aromatic Riesling wine from the Doctor Thanisch vineyards. Their Doctor Trockenbeerenauslesewine is a very limited availability bottle, and yes, I’ll admit it’s expensive – almost as expensive per bottle as a Château d’Yquem.
But you don’t have to break the bank to get an exceptional sweet wine. There are many other great Rieslings or Silvaner bottles coming from the Mosel, Rheingau, Nahe, Pfalz, and Rheinhessen regions. With their delicate earthy and fruity notes and moderate acidity, these wines are as great to explore as any other exceptional wine.
The Thanisch wines are imported by Winesellers of Chicago that also imports many bottles from other venerable German producers, such as Dr. Pauly Bergweiler, Fitz Ritter, Dr. Heyden, Bollig Lehnert, Paul Anheuser, Schafer, and GA Schneider. I’ve tasted most of them and have also visited the Dr. Pauly and Fitz Ritter wineries and vineyards in the past. Many of those wines are truly spectacular.
Do you enjoy sweet wines? If so, comment below, and let us know your favorites.
A vôtre santé!
Manos Angelakis is one of the founders, the former Managing Editor for 25 years, the current Managing Editor Emeritus, and Senior Food & Wine Writer of LuxuryWeb Magazine. He is an accomplished travel writer, photographer, and food and wine critic based in Hackensack, New Jersey. As a travel writer, he has written extensively about numerous cities and countries. Manos has also been certified as a Tuscan Wine Master and has traveled to wine-producing areas in order to evaluate firsthand the product of top-rated vineyards. In the past year, he has visited and written multiple articles about Morocco, Turkey, Quebec City, Switzerland, Antarctica, and most recently the South of France. Articles in other publications include Vision Times and Epoch Times.
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