Winemaking
How sweet wine is made
Five different routes to leaving sugar in the glass — stopping fermentation, drying the grapes, freezing them, botrytis, and simply adding sweetness back.
Overview
Concentrating the grape: noble rot, drying after harvest (appassimento), shrivelling on the vine (late harvest), or freezing (ice wine). All remove water and leave sugar behind.
Stopping the fermentation: by chilling, filtering out the yeast, or adding spirit. The sugar was always there; it simply never got fermented.
Adding sweetness back: Süssreserve in Germany, or dosage in sparkling wine.
The methods produce genuinely different wines. Botrytis adds honey and saffron; ice wine keeps pure primary fruit; drying adds raisin and fig.
Sources
Sources consulted
- WSET educational materials and the Systematic Approach to Tasting — Wine & Spirit Education Trust
More in winemaking
Winemaking
Fermentation
Yeast converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide — the step that makes wine wine.
Winemaking
How red wine is made
Fermenting grape juice in contact with the skins, which is where colour and tannin come from.
Winemaking
How white wine is made
Pressing the juice off the skins before fermentation, then fermenting the clear juice.