The nature of dessert wines is that they are highly concentrated in flavor and much sweeter than standard wines. The process of getting there can be broken down into three distinct steps. The first is that the grapes are left on the vine much longer than traditional picking schedules would dictate. This is termed, late harvest winemaking. The second procedure contributes further to the sweetening of those grapes by allowing that highly ripened fruit to attract a mold – botrytis cinerea. This process was born in Hungary during the seventeenth century and the mold was discovered to ripen and concentrate the grapes into ultra-sweet orbs of flavor and sugars by extracting the water content. The third important step in the process is to take the sweet juice squeezed from these grapes and let it ferment for six months and then age for three years in oak barrels.
To enjoy the fruits of these late-harvest artisans there are a few things to remember:
- Stemware: the glass should be smaller than a white wine glass, but larger than a port glass, with a mouth that tapers slightly toward the rim
- Temperature: most white wines are mistakenly over chilled, as are too often dessert wines. It’s best to serve them between 57 – 60 degrees to best accentuate the flavors
- Serving size: whether served solo, or pared with dessert, two or three ounces is the most appropriate size for each pour
And if you were hoping for a dessert wine from the northern California wine country, there is but one within all of Sonoma County and Napa County amongst the five hundred wineries there which dedicates itself to late-harvest winemaking, Napa Valley's Dolce Winery.
