Mr. Flores

Food & Beverage

Dessert Wines - Are They Only for Desserts?

By Juan Carlos Flores, Executive Sommelier, Pueblo Bonito Hotels Resorts & Spas

The influx of new and interesting wines to accompany gastronomical innovations has produced a hunger for learning and experimenting with pairings of wine and food. Dessert wines provide an open window to delightfully sweet and powerful experiences. They are also so varied that you can present them in any number of ways.

Dessert wines are produced in limited quantities throughout the world and tend to be more expensive than the average bottle of everyday drinking wine. Yet, a single glass of these wines, at any moment of the day, is capable of giving great satisfaction. Some months ago I had the opportunity to taste an Ice wine made with Vidal grapes in a Canadian restaurant. It was served by itself at the end of the meal and cost $27 Canadian. It was absolutely worth it. This was one of the most famous elegant, fresh and clean wines from Canada's magnificent Niagara on the Lake area. The following day I bought a bottle of the same wine and another made with Riesling to share as a beautiful experience with friends and family back home. Even though they did not know a great deal about wine, the flavors were marvelously pleasing to every palate.

Have you ever taken a bottle of wonderful red wine such as one from Piedmont to a dinner party with new friends and were disappointed to find that most of them didn't like it because it was tart and tannic? (Though for my taste, these are some of the best wines in the world.) As an alternative, I suggest that you try taking a dessert wine of the same or even lesser price and you will have a much better chance of pleasing everyone.

Learning a little about these wines will help you enjoy them more and appreciate why their quality can be costly. Normally when we use the term Dessert Wines we refer to those wines which are typically served with desserts or enjoyed on their own at the end of the meal as a substitute for dessert. These wines range from sweet to very sweet, depending on the grape variety that is used, the natural conditions where the grapes were grown and the winemaking techniques of the producer.

Many dessert wines have a low alcohol level of seven to eight percent because they are so sweet and so acid that the yeast cannot survive to transform the must (the juice of the grapes during fermentation) into a dry wine with a higher alcohol level. It can sometimes take months before fermentation is completed, while a regular wine is fermented in days or a couple of weeks.

In other instances, dessert wine legally refers to wines that have an alcohol content of fourteen percent or more. These wines are subjected to higher taxes, as in the case of fortified wines such as sherry and port. This means that their alcohol level is not achieved naturally; they were fortified with neutral alcohol or a spirit distilled from wine, depending on the product. Some dry zinfandels in the United States can easily reach and surpass this percentage of alcohol and are more heavily taxed.

Let's discuss some of the most famous examples of dessert wines.

First we have the Ice Wines from Canada, Austria, and Germany, where it is written as Eiswein. These wines are produced with natural frozen grapes in order to avoid obtaining the water inside the grape when it is pressed. Unlike other dessert wines, grapes for ice wine are not affected by botrytis cinerea (also known as noble rot). This keeps ice wine sweet, fresh and well balanced by high acidity. These wines can survive decades of aging in the bottle, though some say it is preferable not to do this because with time they lose their distinctive acidity, fruitiness, aroma and freshness.

Imagine yourself in Quebec with a gracefully shaped glass filled with Vidal ice wine, matched with cheese varieties such as Oka and Ermite Blue cheese that were developed over a century ago by local monks.

In addition to Eiswein, Germany produces the famous Beerenauslese, which in German means "selected berries," often abbreviated as BA. It is also one of the German wine classification levels in the QmP category. Grapes for this category have been individually picked, are affected at least partially with botrytis, and have a specified minimum must weight at harvest. The next level for concentrated wines in this QmP category, which is the highest category of German wines, are the Trockenbeerenauslese, which means "selected dried berries," abbreviated as TBA. Grapes in these wines have been individually picked and are shrivelled with botrytis to the point where the grape looks almost like a raisin and becomes richer in taste, showing a lot of honeyed aromas and flavor. The finest wines in both categories or levels are made with Riesling grapes because they always show wonderful acidity and could be aged for decades. These TBAs are also produced in Austria.

Imagine a Beerenauslese as an aperitif with slices of toasted rustic bread made with dried apricots and some fresh gorgonzola cheese on top. To die for! Now imagine a Trockenbeerenauslese with a warm Roquefort and quince tart. Mmmm!

France is one of the most important producers of sweet wines, with very different styles such as Coteaux du Layon from La Loire, Jurancon Moelleux from the southwest and Muscat de Beaumes de Venise from the Rhone Valley, among many others. But the most famous in the world are the wines from Sauternes in Bordeaux and the Vendanges Tardives & S'election de Grains Nobles from Alsace.

Sauterne wines are made from S'emillon, Sauvignon Blanc, and Muscadelle grapes that have been affected by botrytis cinerea, which causes grapes to loose water and become partially raisined. This gives wine an extremely concentrated and distinctive flavor with intense golden color. Sauternes is one of the few wine regions in the world where noble rot appears more constant.

One of the best ways to enjoy a nice bottle of Sauternes is pairing it with some foie gras or with a confit of apples and a black currant reduction.

Vendanges Tardives means late harvest in English, and as with the rest of the wines in France, there are many rules in respect to their production. One is the kind of grape varieties permitted, which include Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Gris, Riesling and Muscat. Of these, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris have a higher concentration of sugar in their must than Riesling and Muscat. The best producers exceed the minimums in the must weight required by law. S'election de Grains Nobles means the selection of the noble grapes, and every grape is individually selected and picked by hand. These wines are sweeter and are the next level above Vendanges Tardives in Alsace where grapes are selected and picked by bunches.

To pair a Vendange Tardive made with Gew"urztraminer, imagine some dungeness crab and ginger wontons topped with a lightly spicy caramelized orange sauce. With the S'electione de Grains Nobles made of Muscat, imagine a terrine de foie gras de canard with roasted peaches or a sweet ch`evre souffl'e with peach sauce.

Another magnificent wine comes from a Hungarian wine region called Tokaj Hegyalja, which gives the wine his name Tokaji. It has nothing to do with similar names like tokay used in other countries. This wine was the favorite of kings, emperors and artists such as Louis XIV, Louis XV, Voltaire, Peter the Great, Beethoven and Napoleon. Tokaji wines are made with Furmint, H'arslevelű, Muscat and Z'eta grapes, with Furmint generally the most important. The style may vary and they can range from dry to deliciously sweet.

Tokaji became world famous with the name Asz'u, which means dried in Hungarian. This term is associated with the result of botrytis on the grapes, and the concentration of the Asz'u is defined by the number of puttonyos, which are based on the content of sugar and sugar-free extract in the mature wine. Asz'u ranges from three puttonyos to six puttonyos, with a further category called Asz'u-Eszencia representing wines above six puttonyos. The higher the number of puttonyos the sweeter the wine will be.

Now imagine a three to four puttonyos Tokaji paired with pan-seared veal with a tangerine and nectarine sauce over a thin bed of potato pur'ee aromatized with truffle. Or a six puttonyos with some softly seared foie gras, accompanied by a raisin and nut chutney. And if you are fortunate enough to find an Eszencia, simply enjoy it by itself in a beautiful moment with someone special .

As you can see, sweet wines are fascinating and so varied that we can try them in ways limited only by our imagination. If we open our minds to create new possible dishes, we will discover how incredible these wines are and offer them the opportunity to be on our table. Bon appetit!

Juan Carlos Flores, executive sommelier with Pueblo Bonito Oceanfront Resorts and Spas, was named Mexico’s champion sommelier in 2004, and in 2005 won the Five Star Diamond Award for best North American sommelier. Mr. Flores was educated in Mexico, France and the United States and speaks fluent English, Spanish and French. As executive sommelier, he oversees the extensive wine collections of Pueblo Bonito’s seven resort hotels and numerous restaurants, provides pairing recommendations, and serves as wine advisor and instructor. Mr. Flores can be contacted at jflores@pueblobonito.com.mx Extended Bio...

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