🍷 Sweet wine

Sweet wines (dessert wines) keep a lot of grape sugar: under EU labelling rules a still wine is «sweet» from 45 g/l. The sugar comes either from grapes concentrated by drying, overripening, noble rot or frost, or from stopping fermentation with alcohol of vine origin, as in liqueur wines. ¹²

The sugar scale. For still wines EU rules use four terms: dry, medium dry, medium sweet from more than 12 up to 45 g/l, and sweet from 45 g/l. Sparkling wines have their own scale, on which doux means more than 50 g/l. ²

Wine from raisined grapes. EU category 15 is made without enrichment from grapes left in the sun or shade to dry partly. It needs a natural alcoholic strength of at least 16% vol, or 272 g of sugar per litre, a total of at least 16% and an actual strength of at least 9%. ¹

Wine of overripe grapes. EU category 16 is also made without enrichment, with more than 15% natural, at least 15% total and at least 12% actual alcohol; Member States may prescribe ageing for it. Late harvest wines use very ripe grapes left longer on the vine. ¹

Drying after harvest. Withered grapes usually lose more than 30% of their water, which concentrates sugars, acids and aromas. Sun-drying gives some of the best-known Mediterranean sweet wines, such as Commandaria, Vinsanto of Santorini, Passito di Pantelleria and Pedro Ximénez, and takes from 5 days in Andalusia to 2–3 weeks in Sicily. ⁷

Noble rot. In the right weather Botrytis cinerea makes ripe berries permeable, water evaporates and the juice concentrates. In Sauternes it usually holds about 350 g of sugar per litre and in Tokaj up to 700 g/l; the fungus also produces glycerol, which adds body. ⁸

Frozen grapes. For ice wine the grapes freeze on the vine and are pressed frozen; the OIV recommends −7 °C or below and a must of at least 15% potential alcohol that may not be raised. Freezing harvested grapes in a cold chamber, cryoextraction, is not ice wine, because the OIV requires freezing in the vineyard without physical procedures. ⁶

Sulphites and protected names. Sweet wines may contain more sulphur dioxide: 300 mg/l for Spätlese, 350 for Auslese and 400 for Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, Eiswein, Sauternes or Barsac, against 200 for ordinary dry white wine. ⁵ Many sweet wines are protected names, such as Sauternes, Tokaji or Vin Santo del Chianti, whose specifications are listed in the EU register. ³

Why it matters to you. Words like passito, late harvest or ice wine tell you how the sugar was concentrated, and the protected name gives the rules. ¹³ If you react to sulphites, remember that sweet wines may contain more of them. ⁵ The WHO warns that alcohol causes harm and that no level of drinking is risk-free. ⁴