Many people have the impression of that sweet wines can only be meant for dessert. The lists of sweet wines are long: Moscato d'Asti, Asti Spumante, Sauternes, Tokaji, Port, Madeira, Late-harvested, Botrytis, german white wines, Grenache Vin doux Naturel and Muscat Beaumes de Venise, ice wine, etc.
Perhaps to many, it seems logical to drink sweet wines last since we have sweet desserts as the last course. However, during my travels in the wine world, this rule is not so strongly adhered to. In Italy, Moscato d'Asti is treated as a breakfast wine, sometime to start your day with. You can have it with bacon and eggs done sunny side up. The French love to have their fortified Muscat as a starter or added with rockmelon and a bowl of fruit salad. Fortified wines are wines that have high sugar in it because fermentation is stopped by the addition of alcohol called mutage. I once had Sauternes with artichokes and asparagus in Bordeaux. Auslese and Spatlese German white wines go well with oven roasted pork dishes when I was there. Recently in Singapore, I had a Moscato rosé with sweet chinese egg tart. How delicious was that!
Here's a basic principle you can learn from my experience:
1) Sweet wines do not necessarily go well with sweet stuff. The reason is that if sweet wine is not sweeter than your dessert, it will taste acidic, sour and sometimes bitter. The tongue has experienced a sensory overload of sweetness from the dessert, that it makes the sweet wine taste less sweet and out of balance.
2) Try something bitter or highly acidic with the dessert. Food and wine is a marriage. A wine that is unbalanced by itself can be balanced by the right food. A bitter wine can be like some red wines and a acidic wine can be like a young Hunter Valley Semillon or Pinot grigio from Veneto.
3) Some sweet wines are best left to be drank by themselves like Old Port and Madeira.
No comments:
Post a Comment