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- The Sweetest of the Sweet...
I have decided to learn about wines specifically because I was tired of going to restaurants and just picking "whatever everyone else picked". My brother, who had been a bartender for over 15 years told me to figure out what grape I liked and then sent me a video y John Cleese called "Wine for the Confused". :) After watching that video, I learned that my palate LOVES sweet wines. My brother then instructed me to learn about the type of grape I liked and after doing some reading (and a it of tastetesting! LOL) I learned that the Moscat grape seems to be where I should start.
The issue is....some of the moscat (or moscato) wines I have had have not really been "sweet" per say. Can anyone start me with the sweetest of the sweet wines and then I can go from there? Any suggestions?
NOTE: I have read about Icewines. Should I start with them?
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41 - Reply by schellbe, Sep 6.
On the last note first, should you start with Icewines.... That depends on the size of your wallet. Dessert wines tend to quite expensive. Icewines in particular are made from grapes frozen on the vine in late season. You may be able to find a couple of inexpensive ones, but most will cost above $20 per half bottle. Generally, if you find a Muscat based wine in a half bottle (375 ml) it will be sweet, even if not an icewine. I believe Australia has some. Ask your merchant if in doubt.
You can also try Moscato d'Asti from the Piedmont region of Italy. This costs from ten to twenty dollars per bottle, and is moderately sweet and very low alcohol.
Try a half bottle of a Muscat dessert wine, or a (lighter) Moscato d'Asti, and see if you like them.
Muscat is a less common varietal than some others, such as Riesling, so eventually you might want to consider those. Generally the half bottles of Riesling are sweet, but ask your merchant if in doubt.
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1738 - Reply by Gregory Dal Piaz, Sep 6.
I'll second schellbe's recommendation of Riesling.
And it's fairly easy to find the sweeter ones if you stick with German wines.
German wines include the level of ripeness on their labels. This does not mean the finished wines necessarily are sweeter but there are easy way to find out.
First off if a bottle says Trocken on the label it's going to be a dry wine, Trocken is German for dry.
Halb-trocken, or less commonly Feinherb, will mean that the wine is half dry, it will probably still seem dry to someone looking for a sweet wines though.
The German ripeness scale begins with the least ripe
Kabinett - lightly sweet
and goes to
Spatlese - noticeably sweet
Auslese - decidedly sweet
and then the dessert level
Beerenauslese
Trockenbeerenauslese
and Eiswein - Icewine
You can find something labelled as Spatlese Trocken for example but as a general rule:
Auslese is sweeter than Spatlese, and Spatlese is sweeter than Kabinett.
there is another group of lower priced wines that are generally labeled with proprietary names, "L" or "Dragonstone" come to mind, that tend to fall about midway between Kabinett and Spatlese sweetness.
As I said these are very rough guidelines but one way to further narrow your search is by checking the alcoholic content of the wine. The higher the alcohol the less sugar remained unfermented, so the drier the finished wine.
That should get you started on finding the right sweetness level for you!
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30 - Reply by basilwino, Sep 15.
Ice wines are going to be an expensive start. I would start with "Late Harvest" Rieslins from Washington State or Oregon. They are inexpensive, somewhat complex and Sweet. Once they become too sweet for you (that'll probably happen) then you can tone it down a notch and pick up some other flavors while still remaining on the sweet side. You might enjoy the Moscato d' Asti later.
