We Indians have a sweet tooth — witness the myriad sweets (jalebi, gulab jamun, barfi, rasgulla) available at the neighbourhood mithaiwalla. Which is why it is somewhat surprising to see such low consumption and poor availability of sweet wines here.
Perish the thought, you may be thinking: The Goan Port wine I had in Panjim, in December, was just terrible — and I paid all of Rs 150 for the stuff! That’s the problem, really — most people tend to equate sweet wine with something cheap and syrupy, and have never been exposed to good sweet wines. The aphorism, “pay peanuts and you get monkeys” applies equally to wines as to any other area — good wines are expensive, and one must be prepared to shell out a pretty penny for a decent drop.
The most famous sweet (or “dessert”) wines are Sauternes, Tokaji and some German wines (all produced from botyrised grapes) and the ice wines of Europe and (lately) Canada. There are also the Recioto wines of Italy; less well-known are the “late harvest” wines produced in India.
The Sauternes area lies in the Bordeaux region of France, upstream from the town and the more famous red wine-producing areas. A combination of warm weather and dawn mists cause the Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes grown here to become afflicted by a mould called Botrytis cinerea — “noble rot” — which causes the grapes to shrivel up and yield only a fraction of the normal juice. The resulting wine is sublime: a sweet, rich-textured, flower-scented, glittering golden beverage, long-lived and absurdly expensive (a 1787 Chateau d’Yquem, the most famous Sauternes, once sold for $56,000!).
Tokaji (also Tokay or Tocai) is again both the name of the region in north-east Hungary as well as the wine produced from the little-known Furmint and Harslevelu grapes. When afflicted by botrytis (aszu) the grapes are processed into Tokaji Aszu, with sweetness measured in puttonyos (5 puttonyos = 120 g/l of sugar; 6 = 150 g/l). This legendary wine has a 400-year-old history (200 years longer than Sauternes) and had gone into decline under the communists from 1949, but is seeing a revival with the return of privatisation. Wine Spectator rates a Tokaji Szepsy 2002 I had recently at 90 points/$215 per bottle.
German (and Austrian) wines from the Riesling grape that have had botrytis are graded according to quality and sweetness, and are termed Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, and Trockenbeerenauslese in ascending order — the last being extremely rare and expensive (90 points and from $100/bottle).
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Then, there is ice wine, made from grapes (normally Riesling, but any grapes can be used) that have been allowed to freeze on the vine (remember, the harvest in Europe and North America is September/October). In Germany and Austria, these are termed “Eiswein”. Canada has been producing ice wine since 1973 — its most well known brand, Inniskillin, sells for about $100 per 375 ml bottle.
Recioto wines are made in north-east Italy from Valpolicella grapes (mainly Corvina, a red grape) that have been semi-dried, the fermentation having been stopped to give a full-bodied sweet red wine. As may be expected, prices for Recioto wines (think names like Allegrini, Tedeschi and Bertani) are lower at $30-50 per bottle.
Lastly, in India, if the grapes are allowed to remain on the vine past their optimal ripeness and picked later in the summer (April/May) they would have dried — the resulting “late harvest” white wines are sweet and very aromatic. Sula’s Late Harvest Chenin Blanc is Rs 390 for a half-bottle in Bangalore, while the Reveilo is a hefty Rs 845 for the same size.
So how and when does one drink sweet wines? The traditionalist thinking is that these are always drunk chilled, in small quantities, and are best paired with a dessert or something sweet. However, a good sweet wine can surprisingly enhance a meal (particularly Asian or Eastern cuisines) and tone down the chillies. This extends to all Rieslings, rosés and Chenin Blancs.
One of the classic wine-and-food matches is Sauternes with foie gras — the match works because the wine builds richness upon richness. Try it sometime — you’ll be cackling with glee!
Santé!