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Sweet Wine
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Traditionally a sweet wine is dry in nature. Sweet wine used to be taken alone but time has changed the perception and sweet wine has become a perfect pair with many foods. No sweet wine is made by natural winemaking process. In winemaking what happens is that the sugar crystals of the grapes are converted in to alcohol during the fermentation process. To make sweet wine, the fermentation process is stopped at a premature stage. This makes the natural sugars form into residues. Premature fermentation leaves some traces of yeast and solid substances in the sweet wine. For this reason after the fermentation process sweet wine is run through a filtration process. The filtration process of sweet wine is very necessary. Remaining yeast in the sweet wine can trigger a secondary fermentation in the bottle and could make it a highly alcoholic sour wine. A sour taste is certainly not desired in sweet wine. For making sweet wine grapes with higher sugar level is ideal. In sweet wine the alcohol level remains between 11% to 14%. High sugar level can only ensure that level. As mentioned earlier a premature fermentation is required for making sweet wine. So all sugars are not converted into alcohol and sugar in large quantity, which is partially fermented, can only achieve alcohol levels of 11 to 14 percent. To achieve high sugar level in grapes, the grapes are harvested late. Thus sweet wine is called ‘Late Harvest Wine’. Some of the grapes, which make sweet wine, are: White Varietal: Riesling, Semillon,Sauvignon Blanc. Red Varietal: Zinfandel How sweet you want your wine depends on how late you harvest it. If you harvest it a little early the sweet wine will not be very sweet whereas if harvested late it will be very sweet. Germany is famous for sweet wine. Some sweet wines of Germany distinguished by sweetness is Spätlese (sweet), Auslese (very sweet), Beerenauslese (extremely sweet), and Trockenbeerenauslese (like a syrup). |
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