{"id":2169,"date":"2022-08-29T13:37:22","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T13:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2169"},"modified":"2022-08-29T13:37:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T13:37:22","slug":"red-dessert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2169","title":{"rendered":"Red Dessert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Often when we visit a winery and have tasted what was on the list for that day, we\u2019ll sort of nonchalantly ask, \u201cDo you make dessert wine?\u201d.\u00a0 Sometimes the answer is \u201cno\u201d and sometimes it\u2019s \u201cyes, but it\u2019s not available\u201d.\u00a0 But quite often the server will reach below the bar and bring out a small slender bottle that\u2019s full of nectar.<\/p>\n

Wineries very rarely advertise their dessert wines for tasting for a few reasons.\u00a0 These wines are usually made in low volume.\u00a0 They may not be made every year.\u00a0 And they tend to be rather expensive.\u00a0 But they are a distinctive wine category and wine tasters should get to know them and recognize that they\u2019re not all the same.\u00a0 One obvious distinction is that some are red and some are white.\u00a0 In this issue we\u2019ll focus on the red ones.<\/p>\n

First of all, red dessert wines are NOT just red table wines with sugar added, even if they are sometimes made from the same grapes.\u00a0 The winemakers stop the fermentation before all the sugar is eaten up by yeasts, so the residual natural sugar is quite high.<\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of Porto Running Tours.<\/em><\/p>\n

The most famous red dessert wines are Ports.\u00a0 To our way of thinking, if it doesn\u2019t come from Portugal, it isn\u2019t Port, no matter that some American wineries make dessert wines from Zinfandel or Pinot Noir and call it Port.\u00a0 The real thing is made from grapes uniquely found in the Douro Valley, such as Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz.\u00a0 It is distinctive and highly alcoholic, because it is fortified with neutral spirits.\u00a0 There are many varieties of Port including from ruby, tawny, late bottled vintage (LBV) and best (and most expensive) of all vintage Port.\u00a0 Take a trip to Porto and you can taste them all.\u00a0 Oddly, the Portuguese don\u2019t drink it much, but it is beloved by British academics and anyone with a sweet tooth on a wintry night.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a style of red dessert wine not often found in the United States.\u00a0 In France it\u2019s called vin doux naturel<\/em> or naturally sweet wine; there is no equivalent English term.\u00a0 Almost all of it comes from the south of France, in Provence and Languedoc, usually from Grenache grapes.\u00a0 You may be most familiar with wines known as Banyuls.\u00a0 Of course, all grapes are naturally sweet, but they aren\u2019t all processed the way these wines are.\u00a0 Fermentation is stopped by the addition of some eau de vie<\/em>, which stops the fermentation.\u00a0 There\u2019s less alcohol than in Port, but it still has a kick.<\/p>\n

Finally, there are some specialty wines with long and unique histories.\u00a0 For example, Recioto is made in Italy\u2019s Valpolicella region.\u00a0 It\u2019s Amarone that\u2019s been stopped before it\u2019s finished.\u00a0 The people of that region like dessert too, and you\u2019d better sample it there because it\u2019s not found that often on American wine store shelves.\u00a0 Another is the Greek Mavrodaphne, which you may find in some Greek restaurants and neighborhoods, and is another fortified wine.\u00a0 It may remind you of Port.<\/p>\n

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Often when we visit a winery and have tasted what was on the list for that day, we\u2019ll sort of nonchalantly ask, \u201cDo you make dessert wine?\u201d.\u00a0 Sometimes the answer is \u201cno\u201d and sometimes it\u2019s \u201cyes, but it\u2019s not available\u201d.\u00a0 But quite often the server will reach below the bar and bring out a small … Continue reading Red Dessert<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2171,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}