Late Harvest

Sweet wine in the US usually fall into four categories: Botrytized wines made from Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, and modeled on French Sauternes, Late Harvest wines – usually Rieslings, but Zindfandel now as well; wines from the Muscat family of grapes, modeled on southern French and Italian dessert wines; and Fruit Wines, usually made from North American indigenous grapes and other fruits.

Botrytized wines are ordinarily made from white grapes from warm, wet, humid climates – the perfect conditions for the formation of Botrytis cinerea, a benevolent fungus often referred to as the ‘noble rot,’ and it is responsible for some of the world’s finest sweet wines. Distinctively honey scented, and with considerably more extract (alcohol level) than most wines, they are the most complex and longest lived of all the sweet white wines.

Late Harvest Rieslings, and Late Harvest Zinfandels, are generally made by letting the grapes hang for an extended period of time on the vine until they begin to shrivel and the natural sugar levels are quite high. Then they stop the wine’s fermentation early in the process, thereby leaving some natural sweetness in the wine.

Southern French and Italian dessert wines are the inspiration for the wonderfully delicious dessert wines made from the Muscat family of grapes. Muscat wines are usually not quite as syrupy or voluptuous as other dessert wines, but, instead, are riotously fresh and full of racy mandarin orange, melon, and apricot flavors.

Fruit wines are common in cooler climates like Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. Fruit wine can be made from almost any fruit, berry, or other plant material containing sugar. However, it is usually necessary to add sugar from another source to obtain sufficient alcohol for stability. Table sugar, or sucrose is usually used.