- Regions
- Wines
- Winemaking
- Winegrowing
Making Dessert Wines
Most of California’s dessert wines are late-harvest varietals, usually Gewurztraminer, Muscat, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon or Zinfandel. These wines are described as "late harvest" because winegrowers allow the grapes to remain on the vine longer than grapes for table wines. This allows the grapes to develop slightly higher levels of sugar; when conditions permit - usually damp, rainy conditions - the noble rot Botrytis forms on grape skins. This causes the grapes to shrivel, losing much of their water content and further concentrating the natural sugars for sweet, delicious wines.
After moving through the crusher/destemmer machine (a process called "crush") the wine is pressed off the grape skins - as with making still white wine varietals.
As with other wines, the winemaker initiates fermentation by adding yeast. With dessert wines, however, the winemaker stops fermentation before all the sugar has been converted to alcohol - either by chilling the wine, filtering it, or - in the case of fortified wines - by adding brandy. The residual sugar is what gives dessert wines their sweetness. These wines are often aged in oak or stainless steel; some styles may take on further complexity after a year or two in the bottle.
After moving through the crusher/destemmer machine (a process called "crush") the wine is pressed off the grape skins - as with making still white wine varietals.
As with other wines, the winemaker initiates fermentation by adding yeast. With dessert wines, however, the winemaker stops fermentation before all the sugar has been converted to alcohol - either by chilling the wine, filtering it, or - in the case of fortified wines - by adding brandy. The residual sugar is what gives dessert wines their sweetness. These wines are often aged in oak or stainless steel; some styles may take on further complexity after a year or two in the bottle.