Dessert Wines -Rich and Luscious

Rich and luscious this is a good time of year to add a dessert wine to your shopping list.  Dessert wines are made in many styles and with varying levels of complexity. Basically sweet white wines fall into two groups -

Late Harvest Wines  are crafted from grapes which are picked late in the season when the grapes are shrivelled on the vine and  high concentration of sugar levels has been reached. Look for Semillon, Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc.

Botrytis affected wines -”Stickies” (refers to the texture) as we commonly call  them,  are intensely flavoured white wines, aromatic and deep gold in colour with rich sweet flavour and hopefully enough acid  to prevent the wine from being cloying.  The majority of “stickies” in Australia are made taking advantage of the natural occurring fungus -botrytis cinerea commonly known as noble rot  whose unique properties  attacks the grapes and gradually consumes the moisture from the grape and intensifies the sugar concentration,  fruit flavour and acidity. Warm damp Autumns encourage the growth of noble rot. The botrytis influence gives a strong honey and musk like character.  Look out for Semillon and Riesling which maintains its delicate citrus flavours. Try adding a few splashes of a Botrytis Semillon at the last minute when making garlic prawns, the honeyed  peachy flavours adds another dimension to an already tasty dish.

If there is any plum pudding or Christmas cake left over do yourself a favour and try it with the delicious Yalumba Museum Muscat. The Muscat grape has many varieties and is used all over the world in various different ways. The grape is sweet and fruity with a rich musky aroma and its greatest success is with sweet wines.  Typically these wines are fortified  (more on fortified wines later) but some late harvest and noble rot wines are made with Muscat grapes. Also called Moscato in Italy, we are now seeing some Australian  producers having great success with Moscato. This sweet, lower alcohol slightly spritzy version a great match with a  sunny afternoon.

Rich and luscious if serving with a dessert the wine needs to be the sweeter of the two. These wines have such depth they can be the dessert. Do not serve too cold.

Stephen Henschke talks about his Muscat of Tappas Pass & the Henschke Noble Semillon and the aspects that match them with food.

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