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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sweet Red Wine
It is more difficult to find a sweet red wine than a sweet white wine, but they are available. Most red wine is made dry (the opposite of sweet, in the wine world), which means it contains less residual sugar and usually more tannins, which further enhance the dryness. Some people make the mistake of confusing a sweet red wine with a fruity red wine, but a fruity wine is usually that way because of both its aroma and flavor.
Some fruity red wines are not necessarily sweet. Our taste buds can taste four flavor sensations, which are sweet, salty, bitter, and sour, although our noses can distinguish between thousands of different smells. If a red wine contains a lot of tannin, that can disguise the otherwise fruity notes too.
How is Sweet Red Wine Made?
The level of sweetness in a red wine is determined largely by the amount of residual sugar it contains. The process of fermentation converts the natural sugars in the grape into alcohol, via yeast, so the alcohol level will give you some clue about how sweet the wine is.
A low alcohol level usually means a high residual sugar level and a sweeter wine, and a high alcohol level usually means a low residual sugar level and a dryer wine. If the fermentation process is stopped before all the natural sugars in the grape are converted to alcohol, this results in a dryer wine.
Different Types of Sweet Red Wine
Dessert wines like port are a famous type of sweet red wine. Dornfelder is a German sweet red wine, which has a light, semi-sweet style. Lambrusco is a sweet red wine from Italy which is inexpensive and sparkling.
Rosenblum Cellars Late Harvest Zinfandel is deliciously sweet, offering raspberry, fig, and dark cherry and spice flavors. Zinfandels tend to be fruity too, and the concentrated sugar from the late harvest enhances this natural sweetness even more.
Banfi's Rosa Regale is an Italian wine from the Piedmont area. This sparkling red wine is subtle and sweet, with strawberry and raspberry flavors. This sweet red wine is nice with pecan pie, fresh fruit, or chocolate.
Inniskillin Winery Cabernet France is an ice wine made from Cabernet Franc grapes. This elegant wine combines red berry flavors with sweetness. An ice wine is a dessert wine made from grapes which have been frozen whilst still on the vine.
Souverain Dessert Syrah Alexander Valley is a sweet red wine from Sonoma with about 10% residual sugar. The spice, black cherry and blackberry flavors are amazing and this is one of the best sweet red wines to try.
New wine drinkers often seek a sweet red wine, since they are used to the sweetness level of candies, chocolate, and cola. Someone new to wine is likely to find a sweeter wine more palatable than a dry one, so it is a good type of wine to choose if you are new to wine or if you just happen to prefer sweet beverages. In this way, you can train your taste buds to get used to the more tannic flavors, so you can move from the sweet, pale red wines, to the rich, ruby red ones.
