What Is The Sweetest Wine You Can Sip?

Approaching the grand finale of a delicious meal but too full for dessert? How about a sweet sip instead? Dessert wine, the sweetest category of wine, is the perfect way to add a touch of indulgence without the heaviness. Forget these sugar-free wines, sometimes only a dessert wine can satisfy your craving for sweets.

While many table wines lean toward the drier side, dessert wines shine as the sweet stars of the spectrum that deliver a distinctly different tasting experience compared to their dry counterparts. A wine is classified as sweet if it contains more than 30 grams of residual sugar per liter, but dessert wines often exceed this with significantly higher sugar levels than semi-sweet or semi-dry varieties. During the winemaking process, the natural sugars in grapes are converted into alcohol through fermentation, and the more sugars remain unconverted, the more sweetness the wine retains; giving dessert wines their luscious, sugary profile. Some popular grape varieties for these wines include Muscat, Sauternes, Gewürztraminer, and Riesling.

Dessert wines are typically enjoyed as after-meal drinks or paired with desserts. Their sweetness can be achieved through various winemaking techniques, such as stopping fermentation early to preserve sugar, allowing grapes to over-ripen for concentrated sweetness, freezing grapes, or using Botrytis cinerea (noble rot, a fungus) to enhance the sugar content. Other methods include fortifying the wine with spirits or other naturally sweet components like grape juice. In some cases, lower-quality production may artificially increase sweetness by adding sugar, a practice typically associated with less premium, bulk wines.

Dessert wines vary not only in sweetness levels but also in a wide array of complex flavors and tastes shaped by the grape varietals and techniques used in their production. Generally, dessert wines can be categorized into 5 main styles: sparkling dessert wine, lightly-sweet dessert wine, richly-sweet dessert wine, sweet red wine, and fortified wine.

Some of the most widely consumed dessert wines include Moscato d'Asti, port, and the wholly unique ice wine, each representing a different dessert wine style. Moscato d'Asti, one of the most popular sparkling dessert wines, hails from Piedmont, Italy, with around 140 grams of sugar content per liter. Its light, refreshing taste has made it a favorite among wine lovers. Port, deeply rooted in Portugal's winemaking tradition, is a fortified dessert wine where brandy or grape spirit is added during fermentation to turn it into a rich, sweet wine with about 100 grams of sugar per liter. 

Ice wine, produced primarily in Canada, Germany, and Austria, is a richly-sweet dessert wine with a sugar content ranging from 180 to 320 grams per liter. Since the grapes for true ice wine must be harvested and pressed while still frozen, these wines are renowned for their rarity and high price. Other lightly-sweet dessert wines, such as Gewürztraminer and sweet Riesling (often late-harvest), are also widely enjoyed. While most dessert wines are white, sweet red wines like the bubbly Lambrusco and late-harvest zinfandel or petite syrah also make excellent choices for dessert pairing.

Amongst all dessert wines, Tokaji Eszencia reigns the sweetest. This rare Hungarian specialty from the Tokaj region boasts an astounding 450 grams of residual sugar per liter (sometimes even reaching up to 800 grams per liter), which is an incredible 80% sugar content. The wine is crafted from grapes affected by Botrytis cinerea, or noble rot, which causes the grapes to shrivel and concentrate their sugars in the process. While this mold may sound undesirable, it plays a surprisingly beneficial role in winemaking and remains essential in creating the wine's unbelievably rich and sweet flavor profiles. As the grapes dry in the sun, they develop unique notes like ginger, saffron, and beeswax.

Tokaji carries a prestigious royal lineage, having been a favorite among historical figures like Ferenc Rákóczi II, Peter the Great, King Louis XIV, Catherine the Great, and composer Joseph Haydn (who would demand to be paid in this prized wine). King Louis XIV famously praised it as "the wine of kings and the king of wines." There are plenty of untrue myths about alcohol, but this legend is the real deal. Still, as tempting as it may seem to fill a glass with this enchanting golden nectar, resist the urge! Its sweetness rivals that of pure syrup. This is a wine meant for delicate sips, perhaps better measured in tablespoons. You can picture the royals savoring it with a wink of elegance and a touch of restraint to keep it very demure, very mindful.