Lardy's Wine Tasting Notes
Dessert Wines


I have defaulted any fortified or unusual wines into this section, including Sherry or Port style wines. Some small producers have been trying to make high quality entries in these types of wines. The large producers have been making good entries for many years. In fact, the best products of the almost-defunct old-style American hybrid grapes (such as Concord or Niagara) were the fortified wines, which were often of a very high price/quality ratio, and still are, even those no longer using the old grapes.

Dessert wines are obviously sweet, but they should also have a lot of acidity and deep flavours. Pure sugar by itself is not enough. Without the acid and flavours in a good dessert wine you have a cloying mouthful of alcoholic sugar... If this is what you like, try vodka-based mixed drinks or liqueurs.

Dessert wines are often, but not always, made from very late harvested grapes. Often these grapes are rotting, affected by botrytis (a special rot) or by old age (in the case of late harvested wines) or by both. But they can be made from normally harvested grapes that have alcohol added to stop the fermentation when there is still significant sugar left in the wine. Note that this collection has a separate page for dessert-style fruit wines.

Normally the experts suggest serving them very cold. This is to reduce the sensation of sweetness. I disagree in the case of the best wines. The better the dessert wine, the more flavour will show as it gets a bit warmer. Start with it very cold, then let it warm a bit and watch it change. It will start to taste sweeter and softer, and show much more flavour as it warms. This only works to a certain degree of warmth, different for every person. Beyond this is gets sticky sweet and soupy.

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