Sweet wine

Sweet wine is a type of wine with a residual sugar content of over 45 grams per liter. These wines have a very sweet taste and are ideal for desserts or can serve as a dessert on their own. Sweet wines are often made from very ripe grapes from which water has been removed to increase the sugar concentration in the must.

There are several interesting methods to remove water from grapes and achieve high sugar levels:

• Drying grapes: Grapes are dried on straw or hung on strings, removing water naturally. The result is a straw wine.
• Harvesting at Frost: Grapes are picked when the vineyard temperature is -7°C or lower. When pressed, the water remains in the form of ice in the press, leading to the production of ice wine.
• Noble Rot: Grapes are affected by the noble rot Botrytis cinerea, which removes water from the grapes without otherwise damaging them. This process is known as producing botrytized wines.

You can discover renowned sweet wines from Sauternes here.