Dessert wines are especially made to be paired with sweet dishes.
While most types of wine can be paired with desserts, dessert wines, because of their sweet flavor, are specifically designed to bring out the flavor of sweet dishes. There are myriad choices of after-dinner wines that are perfect for drinking with your dessert.
Fortified Wines
Fortified wines are wines that have been fortified with brandy before the fermentation process has been completed. This results in a sweeter tasting wine with a higher alcohol content. Madeira, sherry, and port are common examples.
Ice Wines
Ice wines are made by artificially freezing the grapes used to make the wine, which results in a more concentrated, sweet taste as well as a higher alcohol content. Ice wines are produced mainly in Germany and Canada. Due to the often painstaking process involved in making ice wine, it is more expensive and less common than other types of dessert wines.
Late Harvest Wines
Late Harvest wines are typically made with grapes that have been infected with the Botrytis mold. Known as the "noble rot" Botrytis causes grapes to shrivel, producing an extremely concentrated, sweet taste. Grapes are often picked at precise times of the year, usually later than the normal harvest time, in order to ensure a superior sweet taste. Dessert wines in this category include French Sauternes and German Rieslings.
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