Young people gravitate towards exuberantly fruity and slightly sweet wines because they were weaned on sweet foods and soft beverages. Generally, humans find sweet foods and drinks more appealing.

Soon after this accidental discovery, American, particularly Californian, and then Chilean winemakers embarked on the bandwagon.

These sunny countries have the luxury of a lot of warmth and sunshine. Grapes ripen early in the season and contain high Brix levels. This allows winemakers to achieve high alcohol levels (in excess of 14 percent ABV) and leave a little residual sugar. Alcohol in itself is composed partially of glycerol, which has a sweetish taste, and provides the “body” component in wine.

Excessively fruity wines are called in wine-speak “fruit bombs”, and can be easily achieved in warm to hot climates, by picking up later than customary.

In hot climates, grapes must be picked before they get overripe. Wine made using overripe grapes is dark in colour, smell “cooked”, exude jammy flavours and are generally considered undesirable by connoisseurs. Such wines are also low in acidity and should be consumed within a few years after harvest. These days in many New World countries acidification is normally accepted as a normal practice in winemaking.

Excessively alcoholic wines (14 percent and above) appeal at first sip, but tire the palate soon. After the first couple of glasses, people have to force themselves to finish the remainder of a regular 750 ml bottle.

Achieving desirable balance in wine grapes requires adequate levels of sugar and acidity. Overripe grapes lack acidity, and generally yield flat, insipid wines.

Professional growers pay great attention to the physiological ripeness of the fruit by sampling and not only measuring Brix levels.

Sometimes it is best to harvest before the grapes shrivel, unless late harvest wines are the desired product.

Dessert wines can be produced employing a number of techniques:

Drying grapes out of doors
Harvesting frozen grapes
Drying grapes indoors
Botrytis affected grapes
Reverse osmosis

In sunny regions grapes are sun-dried, in cold countries freezing concentrates the sweetness in the center of the fruit. Careful pressing extracts the sweet core. Drying indoors for extended periods dehydrates grapes and renders them sweet; reverse osmosis extracts water from the must and renders it sweet. Botrytis cinerea affected and thus desiccated grapes naturally yield sweet, honeyed tasting wines.

In cold climate countries or regions grapes are left on the vine as long as possible to coax as high levels of sugar as possible. Occasionally, grapes must be picked unripe yielding thin, vegetal-smelling wines.

In hot climates grapes must be picked as soon as physiological ripeness is sets in to produce balanced wines.

While young people prefer fruit-driven slightly sweet wines, over time they crave acid-driven wines that display vivid flavours and enrich the enjoyment of food.

Fruit-driven wines are short-lived (a few years at best) whereas acid-driven wines lend themselves to cellaring.

Now he consults and writes to increase wine, beer and liquor awareness. He conducts seminars and would be pleased to consider your requests. To peruse the list of his published books and order please contact him at hirayrberberoglu_3@sympatico.ca

Hryar Berberoglu www.littlefatwino.com