How to pour
a dessert wine in
Put the bottle in the refrigerator for two hours. How cold it should be depends on the style: serve a light, lightly sparkling sweet wine at around 6 degrees, and a full-bodied botrytised wine or fortified wine closer to 10. Too cold suppresses the sweetness; too warm makes it syrupy.
Cut around the capsule just below the ridge of the neck and wipe the rim clean. Place the spiral in the center of the cork and turn it straight down. Sweet wine from a small bottle often has a short cork, so do not screw it in too deeply. If there is a screw cap, skip this step.
Pour 5 to 8 cl, no more. That is about one-third of a small stemmed glass, and it is deliberately little: dessert wine is concentrated, and a full glass quickly becomes too much of a good thing. The small measure leaves space above the wine for the aroma to collect.
Recork the bottle immediately and put it back in the refrigerator. An opened fortified wine will keep well there for weeks because the alcohol protects the wine. It is better to drink an unfortified dessert wine within a few days, because without that alcohol, its freshness fades more quickly.
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The story
Sweet wine is made when sugar remains in the wine after fermentation. This can happen in five ways. The botrytis fungus dries out the berries on the vine and leaves behind concentrated juice. Grapes can also dry out without fungus, on the vine or on racks, as with passito and straw wine. For ice wine, they are harvested and pressed while frozen, leaving the ice behind. In fortified wine, alcohol is added during fermentation, causing the yeast to stop and the remaining sugar to stay in the wine. And the cheapest route is simply to add grape juice to a dry wine.
The right glass
Dessert wine goes in a small stemmed glass of roughly 14 to 23 cl, in which a 5 to 8 cl pour still remains well below the rim. That empty space above the wine is exactly where the aroma gathers, and the stem keeps your hand away from the bowl so the wine stays cold. There is no separate dessert wine glass collection here; the small bowls are listed with the port glasses and the liqueur glasses. Our choice 02 is the only glass in the range actually sold as a dessert wine glass; choice 01 is the same size for less money.
Pasabahce Tasting/Port Glass 20 cl (12 pieces)
Schott Zwiesel Air Dessert Wine Glass 20 cl (6 pieces)
Both sets together € 131,05.
The right glassware
For dessert wine, besides the glass you mainly need a corkscrew and, because you only pour a small glass at a time, a wine stopper to seal the bottle airtight again. The bar tools below only come into play when the wine becomes part of an aperitif: a jigger for measuring the small amount precisely and a bar spoon for stirring. These are the bar tools we use ourselves; you can find everything in our bar tools & cocktail sets.
Glassware set (our choice 01) + 2 bar tools together € 61,85.
What do you serve alongside it?
A bottle of dessert wine is rarely the only thing on the table. These are the wine styles that come before and alongside it, from a glass of prosecco to start with to the red wine with the main course. On each drink page, you can read the alcohol percentage, what it tastes like, which cocktails pair well with it and which glass you need.
Variations & twists
Dessert wine encompasses styles that differ considerably. A light, slightly sparkling moscato is low in alcohol and best enjoyed young and chilled. A botrytized wine from Bordeaux or Hungary is full-bodied, golden in colour and can age for years. Passito and vin santo from Italy are made from dried grapes and taste of raisin and nut. Ice wine is the most acidic and the most concentrated. And fortified wine, such as port and madeira, has the highest alcohol content and keeps the longest after opening. Want to read more? View all drinks and brands.
Serving tip
Follow one rule: the wine must be sweeter than the dessert. If a sweet cake is served alongside a wine that is less sweet, all you taste in the wine is acidity. What always works: blue cheese, a piece of aged hard cheese, nuts, or fruit that has not itself been sweetened. Pour small servings, and preferably pour a second small glass rather than one full glass.
Good to know
Noble rot, or botrytis
The mold Botrytis cinerea can destroy a harvest, but under the right conditions it does something else. On humid mornings and dry afternoons, it pierces the skins and lets the moisture evaporate. What remains is concentrated juice with lots of sugar and acidity, plus a distinctive aroma often described as honey and saffron. Because the mold does not affect all the berries at once, the grapes are picked by hand in several rounds, which makes these wines expensive.
Letting grapes dry
Without mold, you can achieve the same result by allowing the water in the grapes to evaporate. This is done by laying the bunches on racks or mats after harvest, or by leaving them hanging on the vine for longer. The sugar and acidity remain in a smaller quantity of juice. In Italy, this method is called passito and produces, among other wines, vin santo and sweet recioto; in France, straw wine is called vin de paille.
Frozen harvests
If healthy grapes are left hanging until it freezes hard, the water in the berries freezes, but the sugar and acidity do not. When the berries are pressed while frozen, the ice remains in the press and only concentrated juice comes out. This is ice wine, called Eiswein in Germany and Austria and icewine in Canada. The risk is high: if the frost does not come, the harvest is lost.
Stopping fermentation with alcohol
With fortified wine, neutral alcohol is added during fermentation. The yeast cannot tolerate it and stops working, so the sugar still present in the juice at that point simply remains in the wine. Port and Madeira are made this way. The result is a wine that is both sweet and high in alcohol, and that keeps well for weeks after opening because the alcohol protects it.
Adding juice, the cheapest route
The simplest way to make a wine sweet is to add unfermented grape juice or must after fermentation is complete. It involves no harvest risk and no extra manual work, and that is reflected in the price. This is how the cheap sweet wines on the shelf are made. They usually lack the concentration and acidity of the other four methods, so they taste more sugary than sweet.
Why acidity is just as important as sugar
A wine with lots of sugar and little acidity feels sticky and becomes too much after half a glass. All four methods used to remove water from grapes concentrate not only the sugar but also the acidity, and that acidity cuts right through the sweetness. That is why a good dessert wine continues to feel fresh, no matter how sweet it is. Alcohol levels vary widely, from roughly 5 percent in a light moscato to around 20 percent in a fortified wine.
Frequently asked questions
How cold do you serve dessert wine?
Between 6 and 10 degrees, depending on the style. Serve a light, lightly sparkling sweet wine on the colder side, and a full-bodied botrytised wine or fortified wine at the upper end of that range. Two hours in the refrigerator brings a bottle to about that temperature. If served too cold, the aroma disappears and you mainly taste acidity.
How much dessert wine do you pour?
Five to eight centilitres, about one-third of a small stemmed glass. That is deliberately little: the wine is concentrated and sweet, and a full glass quickly becomes too much. Pouring a small amount leaves room above the wine for the aroma to collect and keeps the last bit in the glass cold.
Which glass do you use for dessert wine?
A small stemmed glass holding roughly 14 to 23 cl, with a bowl that narrows slightly toward the top. A large wine glass does not work: in it, a 6 cl pour sits as a thin layer on the bottom and the aroma disperses. A stemless glass does not work either, because your hand warms the wine.
What do you eat with dessert wine?
The rule of thumb is that the wine should be sweeter than the dessert; otherwise, it will only taste sour. That is why blue cheese, aged hard cheese, nuts, and unsweetened fruit often work better than a sweet dessert. With a botrytised wine, blue cheese is the classic pairing; with a fortified wine, a piece of chocolate or a handful of walnuts.
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