The Sweet Rewards of Dessert Wines

Classic dessert wines are wonderful, complex, and delicious beverages. The range of dessert wines is considerable and growing. With today’s high-quality kits, you can make terrific dessert wine at home and, with a little tweaking, give the finished product a unique touch. Dessert wines don’t always have a great reputation in popular wine culture, where many people believe dry means good and sweet means bad. One reason for this might be that some dessert wines are merely failed wines that have been altered by adding brandy to overpower any bad tastes. But a good dessert wine has its place on the table and can be just as rewarding as a good Cabernet or Chardonnay. The classic dessert wines are Sauternes and Barsac, which are the two most widely known; late harvest Riesling, Muscat, and Gewürztraminer; Madeira; Orange Muscat from California and Australia; Hungarian or Australian Tokay; ice wines from Canada, Germany, and Austria; Muscatel from Portugal; and Beaumes-de-Venise from the Rhône area of France. Dessert wines also encompass the lesser known late-harvest Vidals. Ports of all descriptions are also considered