Unsurprisingly, dessert wine is normally served to accompany sweet puddings and desserts! Dessert style wines are typically white, very sweet and complement a wide variety of popular desserts. In fact, these wines are often so sweet and unctuous that they can be served instead of a dessert

Production of Dessert Wine

Dessert wines are incredibly sweet (sometimes sickly) because they contain substantially higher levels of sugar than other wines. The sweetness of quality desserts wines derives from the bacteria Botrytis Cinerea or Noble Rot, as it is more commonly known. This bacterium grows on certain vines when the grapes are allowed to over-ripen. Normally, during fermentation, most of the sugar converts to alcohol; however, in grapes with noble rot, much of the sugar remains in the wine, thus creating a sweet dessert wine.

Not all dessert wine is the result of Noble Rot. Any grape that is left to over-ripen can, potentially, be very high in sugar and therefore produce the same result as grapes with Noble Rot. To ensure that they are left to become sufficiently over-ripe, many vineyards actually hang the grapes to allow them dry out. By losing a large volume of their water content, the grapes’ sugar content, in turn, becomes far more concentrated.

Serving Dessert Wine

Dessert wine, because of its higher sugar content, tends to last longer when opened compared with other white wines. A bottle can retain its freshness, for several days, provided that it is kept airtight and well refrigerated. While we are on the subject of refrigeration, it’s worth noting that dessert wine should be served at around 10 degrees Celsius.

This type of wine is generally drunk for its taste and not in large quantities; a half bottle is ample for two people and often sufficient for four people. Most diners simply treat dessert wine as a liqueur rather than as a wine, hence the smaller volume.

It is well worth trying a dessert wine next time you’re in a restaurant; a decent dessert wine can really add that special something to round off a great meal!

Port Wine is a fortified wine made from several different grape varieties cultivated in northern Portugal. It comes in a variety of styles including Vintage, Tawny and Ruby.

The first stages of the port production process take place in the Douro region of Portugal. From there, the port wine is transported to cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia, near Oporto, for further maturation. During fermentation, a high strength brandy called aguardente is added to lend the port its unique color and flavor.

The Portuguese wine industry is proud of its unique product and rightly so. It is keen, above all, to dissociate itself from dubious port “lookalikes”, produced outside Portugal. So, for the record, let it be known that only port produced in Portugal can be called genuine port. Caveat emptor, therefore, and always check out the label first.

Now, feelings indeed are running high where inferior Port imitations are concerned, so high in fact that the official Portuguese wine regulation body has renamed port “Porto” to reflect its authenticity and the name of the city, Oporto, from which it derives.

For a taste of the genuine article, try:

Vintage Port:

This style of port is produced from grapes grown in a particularly good year. Standards have to be exceptionally high for a vintage year to be declared. Top of the range vintage port is normally matured in wood for around two to three years and then stored in bottles for up to twenty years or more, in order to reach its full maturity.

Vintage Character Port:

This type of port is actually a blend of good quality wine taken from different vintages or years. Vintage character port is usually aged in wood for approximately four years and is ready for drinking soon after being bottled.
LBV (Late Bottled Vintage)

A vintage-style port, which has been matured for around six years, before bottling. LBV will continue to improve, once bottled.

Tawny Port:

Tawny port is matured in casks for up to ten years or more, until it develops its mellow flavor and characteristic faded tawny color. Tawny ports tend to be top of the range and make for excellent after dinner drinking.

Ruby Port:

As its title suggests ruby port has a distinctive ruby-red color. A basic style port, ruby port is usually ready for drinking after two to five years’ maturation in wood. It has a fruity, almost liquorice flavor.

White Port:

Although white port only accounts for a small sector of the port trade it is nevertheless becoming an increasingly popular, modern apéritif.

“I love to cook with wine - sometimes I even put it in the food!”

… a great sentiment, shared by many enthusiastic cooks, across the globe. Imagine the scene: a glass in hand, as we pour a generous (preferably unmeasured) slurp into our ingredients, as we happily prepare our evening meal.

And, arguably, we have the French to thank for this relaxed liaison between food and wine. They can teach us a thing or two about cooking with wine, starting with the basic principle that the wine you use for cooking has to be drinkable - not corked or unfit for human consumption. Cooking will not, as if by miracle, turn duff wine into something that will enhance your dish - au contraire, it will ruin your masterpiece.

All you need to do is choose decent quality, cost-effective wines for cooking. Here are some suggestions:

Dry red wine

Basic fruity table wines, such as Pinot Noir or a lighter bodied Zinfandel are great for cooking, because they’re fairly low in tannins and will not overwhelm your dish.

Use for making red wine sauces, gravy, soups, beef and lamb casseroles, game recipes, spaghetti Bolognese, ratatouille or even Greek pastitsio.

Dry white wine

Avoid dry whites that are too sharp or acidic or excessively oaked, because these characteristics, although desirable in a drinking wine, are not so hot for cooking, as they become accentuated during the cooking process. Opt instead for simple, fruity table wines, such as chardonnay or sauvignon blanc for cooking.

Use for making cream sauces, pasta sauces, white meat dishes such as chicken casserole, soups, seafood and fish recipes, especially salmon, or in a fondue.

Sherry

A gem for use in cooking, genuine Spanish sherry will add oomph to a surprising number of sweet and savory dishes. Avoid sherries at either end of the dry/sweet spectrum, i.e. extremely dry fino sherry or sweet cream sherry. Your best bet is a medium amontillado sherry.

Use for savory sauces and white meat recipes, pasta dishes such as chicken lasagne, and soups

The word “vintage”, in the context of vintage wine, is one of the most commonly misused descriptions to trip lightly off the tongues of wine buffs, worldwide.

Vintage wine has connotations of being something rather special, a luxury that is decidedly up-market, or possibly a wine that has been painstakingly nurtured and aged for many years.

So, let’s set the record straight, once and for all. We need to define the real meaning of the word vintage as an adjective used for describing wine. Perhaps a good starting point is to clarify what vintage is not:

For a start, vintage is not a uniform description for wine that is necessarily top quality. It may well refer to a quality wine; on the other hand, some utterly undrinkable specimens may also be vintage wines.

Nor is the term vintage, on a wine label, any guarantee of excellence. To put it bluntly, there is nothing remotely reassuring about the word vintage emblazoned across the label of your inexpensive supermarket “find”!

Nor does vintage refer to a specific type of wine produced by a particular estate or a wine from a defined wine-growing region.

Definition of vintage wine

So, what exactly is vintage wine?

Vintage wine means wine that is produced from a single year’s grape harvest, or simply the wine of a single year.

The term vintage is used to describe the annual grape harvest. In other words, if the year in which a wine is produced is shown on the label, then the wine is vintage wine - nothing more, nothing less.

When wines from different years or vintages are blended together, then the end product can no longer be described as vintage wine.

And, herein lies the irony. The term blend is often viewed in derogatory terms, as a wine that is potentially inferior. Nothing, in fact could be further from the truth; we only have to think of champagne, that most illustrious of wine blends and the most coveted sparkling wine blend, in the world.

Are you interested in wine but don’t know where to start? A wine club may be just what you’re looking for.

The basic aims of a wine club are very simple - to provide a quality selection of wines to members, at affordable prices. Most wine clubs operate by sending regular price lists to their customers, either by post or by email. These mailshots itemize the wine selection that is available and also give details of any promotions and special offers. They often also provide more general information about different wine regions, trends and how forthcoming vintages are shaping up.

Most wine clubs expect members to place a minimum order for one case (12 bottles). Often, they will offer special deals on mixed cases. A mixed case gives wine drinkers an excellent opportunity to try out wines that they might not otherwise consider. They may also offer additional discounts when large quantities are purchased, if you’re organizing a wedding, for example. Although some wine clubs specialize in particular regions (e.g. Bordeaux, Burgundy) most of them offer both Old World and New World wines. In fact, without the demand from wine clubs it’s unlikely that the Australian wine industry would have reached the eminent position that it finds itself in today.

A well administered wine club will offer a choice of ordering methods: mail, phone, fax, email or online via a web site, as well as rapid delivery and a no quibble, money back guarantee for any wines that don’t live up to expectations.

In addition to wine, many wine clubs market all the paraphernalia associated with wine: wine glasses, corkscrews, foil cutters, decanters and wine racks, together with wine-related books, posters and charts. Some wine clubs even arrange overseas tasting tours for serious enthusiasts.

Red, white or rosé; still or sparkling - whatever your preference a wine club can provide more choice.