What is the opposite of dry wine?
Let’s say I went into a fancy restaraunt and wanted sweet wine rather than dry wine, what would I ask for?
From the Wine Basics section of www.winespectator.com, possible options are:
off-dry (Indicates a slightly sweet wine in which the residual sugar is barely perceptible 0.6 percent to 1.4 percent.)
rich (Wines with generous, full, pleasant flavors, usually sweet and round in nature, are described as rich. In dry wines, richness may be supplied by high alcohol and glycerin, by complex flavors and by an oaky vanilla character. Decidedly sweet wines are also described as rich when the sweetness is backed up by fruity, ripe flavors.)
demi-sec (In the language of Champagne, a term relating to sweetness. It can be misleading; although demi-sec means half-dry, demi-sec sparkling wines are usually slightly sweet to medium sweet.)
perfumed (Describes the strong, usually sweet and floral aromas of some white wines.)
Er, the auto-urling feature added a comma in the link above. Try this:
Asti is cloyingly sweet. Riesling is tolerably sweet and tasty.
An example: De Bortoli Noble One, a botrytis (mould) affected sweet semillon dessert wine. Were you to order this with your souffle or with your gorgonzola or stilton you’d be happy.
Usually, but it doesn’t have to be – riesling is a grape, not a style. If the vintner decides he wants a dry reisling (somewhat common) he just has to let it ferment longer to cut the sugar. If you’re looking for a sweeter riesling, look for lower alcohol content – an 8% riesling will be very sweet. Also, look for a “spatlasen,” which means late harvest. The later the grape is harvested, the more sugar it contains. Although a vintner can take a late harvest grape and let it ferment a very long time to dryness (leading to a high alcohol content, maybe 13%), this isn’t very common. Mostly if a vintner leaves a grape on the vine that long, it is so he can make a sweeter wine.
Doux means very sweet, although I believe the term is used mostly for champagne and other sparkling wines.
–Cliffy
Ah, well, I’m a tyro when it comes to wine, after all. Every riesling I’ve had, no matter what the alcohol content, has been sweet.
Now, go ask a question about beer. I’m sure to get that one right!
Well, how sweet do you want it to be. Insanely sweet, as in Manishewitz? Sugary-sweet, like a dessert wine? Or just “not especially dry” as in much Merlot?
The Germans are, as in many things, very methodical in the rating of their wines. Starting off with “tafelwein” or table wine, the poor man’s daily quaff, they move up the scale to “qualitatswein”, then “Qualitatswein mit pradikat” (abbreviated to QmP), where you start to encounter the higher grades: Kabinett, Spatslese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, and the sweet and costly Eiswein, so called because it is harvested after the grapes have frozen in the very late fall, concentrating the juice into flavor-packed little snowballs. The higher in the scale, the sweeter the wine, so experiment a little and find the level you like best. Fortunately, German wine is generally lower in alcohol - they mean for it to be drunk alone, not so much as an accompaniment to food - so the cost of your experimentation can be limited to your wallet.
Um…I’m reading the question a little more literally than the rest. The opposite of dry wine is, exactly as you said, “sweet wine.” You also have semi-sweet, and semi-dry to round off your scale.
You would not sound like an uncultured buffoon if you asked your waiter to recommend a “sweet red” or a “sweet white.”
Unfortunately, I stay away from most sweet wines, so I can’t recommend anything in particular. If you like dessert wines, which are super-sweet (we’re talking honey here,) I’d recommend Hungary’s Tojay Aszu or French Sauternes (NOT Sauterne, a cheap imitation.)
And there’s also the German Eisweins (Ice Wines.)
Oh, actually, there are a couple of varieties of sweet white I drink from time to time, and those are Muscat (aka Muscatel, Moscato) or Gewurtztraminer. Muscat is particularly nice, sweet and fruity with overtones of honey (at least to my palate.)