Wine has its own vocabulary describing tastes, styles, methods, processes, and a myriad of other topics. This time, I cover one of the basic descriptions of a wine: Sweet.
A common way to classify a wine is according to the amount of sugars left over after yeast has converted some of the sugars in the grapes into alcohol. A wine labelled as 'Sweet' means that the wine contains a high level of these residual sugars. Sweeter wines tend to contain lower levels of alcohol as the sweetness is from sugar yeast did not get a chance to convert. The presence of other items can affect the perceived sweetness of a wine. Acids and tannins, which taste bitter, detract from the sweetness of the sugar in the wine, making an otherwise sweet wine taste less so.
Generally, to make a sweet wine requires a grape which contains a high amount of sugar. Winemakers can tweak this by adding sugar before or after fermentation or by adding must (fresh pressed grape juice) after fermentation.
Environmental conditions will affect how sweet a wine is. Depending on the variety, riper grapes will produce a sweeter grape. Noble rot, a type of fungus that attacks grapes under the right conditions, will act to make the grapes and resulting wine sweeter. (Yes, a fungus can be beneficial to grapes. So is yeast, which is also a fungus. Wine is delicious, but no one ever said that making it wasn't a bit creepy...)
Sweet wines are often labelled as 'Dessert wines'. When pairing wine with foods, Sweet wines should be paired with dessert. Which wines should be paired with which desserts will depend on the type of wine, the variety of grape, and the actual taste the individual wine imparts.
Typically, sweet wines are served chilled, just a few degrees above freezing. This plays to the strengths of the sweetness of the wine and allows your tongue to better detect the sugars in the wine.
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