Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Sweet wines? Sparkling wines? Sweet and sparkling? What to choose.

Clairette de Die is a new wine for me. How about you? It's a sweet muscat with sparkle. More details below. I've listed the wines alphabetically by country, to make it easier for me to compile my list and see nothing's missing, and so you and I can find what we want quickly on re-reading later.

Just in case you are wondering, if you prefer dry wines, why anybody needs to know about sweet wines, here's why:
1 If you like dry wines, you want to avoid the sweet ones.
2 If you are a host, you may need to suggest sweet wines to your companion.
3 You traditionally have a sparkling wine for a toast, or aperitif. Champagne is mostly dry.
4 You might want a sweet or sparkling wine before or after the meal.
You might prefer half bottles to go with different foods, including a sweet wine with cheese or sweet dessert.

My favourites are:



AUSTRALIA
http://winefolly.com/review/types-dessert-wine/

AUSTRIA
Wine marked W e l s c h r e s i l i n g - from W e l s c h or west side the Neu new lieder (sea).

FRANCE
Clairette de Die
Might be the traditional C l a i r e t t e grape but it is permitted to use muscat. My latest find is the C l a r i e t t e de Die which is 100% muscat, white sparkling, with a distinctive sweet and sour lime flavour. (If you see the word Claudette, blame spell checker which snakes up - I wrote s n e a k s after you have checked the copy.)

See sauternes - a region in the soutane most part of Bordeaux.

Alsace

GERMANY
Gewurtztraminer gewürzt means spicy or tasty.
Auslese - late picked. (Any fruit whether apple or grape or other starts green and late in the year changes to a darker red or brown or mottled or plum colour and grows sweeter.

HUNGARY
T o k a j i - without the final letter i you are describing the region. With the final letter i you are describing the wine from that region.
The main grape is f u r m i n t . A second grape is Harslevelu. H a r s (not hard - that's spell checker interfering) means linden or lime. Level is leaf. the final U = ed. Leafed.
The grape is not lime but grape and apple flavour.
Tokay can be sweet or dry.
Sweet tokay with botrytis (noble rot) is called a s z u.

ITALY
Prosecco
Popular sparkling white.
G l e r a (Gloria is spellchecker's nonsense) grape is the new name.
Originally both the region and wine were named the same which caused confusion. Janice Robinson in her tomes on wine uses the old name.

PORTUGAL
Mateus Rose. Pink wine.Very light sparkle.

SPAIN
Cava sparkling dry.
Sweet sherry from J e r ez pronounced h e r e z .

USA
Ice wine.
Zinfandel. This grape comes up white, rose, or red.
Grenache.

New Zealand
Ice wine.

I have previous posts on sweet wine. Follow me on Facebook, here on blogger, link to me on linkedIn, browse my books on Amazon and Lulu.com
Angela Lansbury - for the best fun travel: art and attractions, wine and dine, people and places, facts, factories and fun.
Also see my blog on English spelling.


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