Dessert wines are a bit of a mystery to some although can add another dimension to the wine drinking experience, especially when paired with food. Do you have a sweet tooth? Or, are you a self-confessed cheese fiend? Maybe, like us you’re both. This is where dessert wines really come in to their own. If you’re not so familiar with these sweet and sometimes sticky delights but are curious to know more about how to enjoy them, read on.

The Different Types of Dessert Wines & How They’re Made

Dessert or pudding wines, aka ‘stickies’, come in all manner of guises and are pretty much made wherever wine grapes are grown. There are four principle methods for making a dessert or sweet wine.

1) Grow varieties that achieve naturally high sugar levels so that some sweetness remains after fermentation. Muscats are probably the oldest and best known of these but varieties like Riesling, Ortega and Chenin Blanc are also popular choices.

2) The removal of water from the fruit in order to concentrate the sugars. This can happen in one of three ways.

  • The most famous and revered is through a naturally occurring fungus in damp temperate conditions called Botrytis cinerea (botrytis for short, aka ‘noble rot’), which causes the grapes to shrivel.
  • The second only works in frosty climates and involves leaving the grapes hanging on the vine until they freeze and then pressing the juice to make ice wine.
  • Finally, in warm climates, grapes can be air dried after they’ve been picked, dehydrating the grapes and concentrating the sugars in order to make a kind of raisin wine.

3) Adding alcohol while the wine is partially fermented in order to leave residual sugars. The most famous of these ‘fortified wines’ are Port and Rutherglen Muscats from Australia.

4) The addition of sugar post-fermentation either in the form of Süssreserve, (essentially grape juice) as permitted in German winemaking, that increases sweetness levels and dilutes alcohol, or by the addition of dosage liqueur in sparkling wine production (aka liqueur d’expédition), which is a mixture of sugar and still wine added after disgorgement and just before final corking. These are labelled Demi-Sec and Doux in France, Amabile or Dolce in Italy and Dulce in Spain.

Food Pairing with Dessert Wines

There’s one golden rule when it comes to matching food with dessert wines. Make sure the dish you’re pairing to contains less sweetness than the wine. In other words, you don’t want the food to overpower the wine.

In many instances, dessert wines pair better with savoury dishes than with puddings. Think Vintage Port and Stilton.

Here are some of our favourite dessert wines with their suggested seasonal pairings:

Domaine de l’Ancienne Cure, AC Monbazillac
  • Grape/s: 90% Semillon / 10% Muscadelle
  • Region of Origin: Bergerac, SW France
  • Method of Production: Grapes are affected by botrytis and carefully picked over several attempts (a process known as triage). Fermented in stainless steel with regular lees stirring before ageing in tank
  • Ideal Drinking Span: Up to 5 years from the vintage
  • Food matches: Blue cheeses like Roquefort and Rochebaron or a fruit-based dessert like tarte tatin
Château Lafon, AC Sauternes
  • Grape/s: Semillon / Sauvignon Blanc
  • Region of Origin: Bordeaux, France
  • Method of Production: After hand selecting the most botrytis-affected grape bunches for up to six separate sweeps of the vineyards, (which happen to be surrounded by Yquem – the region’s finest), the grapes are fermented with native yeasts and matured for 12 months in French oak barrels (many previously used by Yquem)
  • Ideal Drinking Span: Up to 12 years from the vintage
  • Food matches: At this age, drink with lemon tart or lemon meringue pie. With another 7+ years of ageing, enjoy with crème caramel, bread and butter pudding with custard or a ripe gooey Brie de Meaux
Daschbosch Old Vine Hanepoot (Muscat), Breedekloof
  • Grape/s: Hanepoot (aka Muscat of Alexandria)
  • Region of Origin: Breede River Valley, South Africa
  • Method of Production: Tiny yields are carefully gleaned from 120+ year old bush vines and then carefully crushed and partially fermented before fortification with pure grape spirit (like a vin doux naturel). Ageing takes place in small oak casks for 4-6 months before bottling
  • Ideal Drinking Span: Now and up to 30 years old
  • Food matches: Apricot frangipane, fruit crumble or hard strong cheeses like Lincolnshire Poacher, aged Gouda or cave-aged Cheddar
Domaine Pouderoux, AOP Maury
  • Grape/s: Grenache Noir
  • Region of Origin: Roussillon, France
  • Method of Production: Grapes are hand-picked from 30-50 year old low-yielding vines and then passed across a sorting table for a secondary selection. The juice is partially fermented, like a Vintage Port, in large vats with the cap of skins left intact to prevent oxidation and then fortified with grape spirit
  • Ideal Drinking Span: Now and up to 10 years old
  • Food matches: Dark chocolate with red berries, milk chocolate mousse, caramelised oranges and coarse cut pâté
Bodegas Ximénez-Spínola Pedro Ximénez Vintage
  • Grape/s: Pedro Ximénez
  • Region of Origin: Jerez, Spain
  • Method of Production: Once harvested, the grapes are dehydrated in the sun for at least 3 weeks to concentrate the sugars. Blended with less dehydrated grapes and put into American oak barrels, they ferment naturally and slowly to reach around 12% abv. The wine remains in cask for an additional 3 months before being decanted to bottle via a soft filter.
  • Ideal Drinking Span: Now and up to 20 years old
  • Food matches: Vanilla ice cream, Christmas pudding and fruit salad

The beauty of dessert wines is that they keep well once the bottle has been opened, especially when refrigerated, so you’re not under time pressure to drink them due to their high sugar levels. It’s perfectly reasonable to drink them over several weeks but we can guarantee that’s unlikely to happen once you get a taste for them!

Explore our full range of dessert wines here.