French Stickies & Dessert Wines: What's Out There Beside Sau

WINE TALK
1

Hi Gang,

I had a quick question for the board regarding French dessert wines. I was surprised this week to discover on the recommendation of a fellow board member on another thread of mine to discover a French stickie wine called Baumard Carte D’Or Coteaux du Layon Moelleux was available at our local Toronto LCBO stores and that it was made from Chenin Blanc grapes.

Chalk it up to my inexperience, but up until joining this board, I had no idea that France even made desserts wines from grapes other than the standard and classic “Semillion with a bit of Sauvignon” formula used for Sauternes and Barsac.

In fact, I’ve leaned a lot towards Australian and Austrian sticky wines and admire them a lot more simply because they seem daring enough to make both red and white stickies out of seemingly any grape they can get their hands on – Chardonnay, Nouvelle Vague, Riesling, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, etc.

So my questions to you all are: what other French sticky/sweet wines are out there that I should be hunting down? Does France do stickies with varietals other than the classic Semillion based ones and the one Chenin Blanc I’ve found? Do they do red sweet sticky wines as well? My own interweb thingie research has led me to find out about Monbazillac but I believe this is the exact same composition as Sauternes and Barsac as well.

Feel free to let me know what I should be on the lookout for. Thanks everyone.

2

Late harvest wines from Alsace.

3

Tran. I’d encourage you to do a little study on your own. There are a lot of decent wine texts.

That said. Off the top of my head there’s Jurancon (Petit Manseng), Bergerac like nearby Monbazillac, Saussignac, etc, lots of Muscat across the south, Vin de Paille in the Jura, dessert chardonnays from the Maconnais, etc. Some of the very best in the world come from the Alsace, none of which are chenin, sauv blanc or semillon. There are many more.

RT

4

+1 on Late harvest Alsace. Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer are notable. Coteaux du Layon and other sweeter Chenins appeal to me as well. Demi-Sec Champagne is a great treat as well. I agree with Richard- pick up a wine atlas and start reading up and tasting.

I agree with what Glenn said in another thread. I’d recommend you start pairing these up with foie gras, cheese, pate and other savory foods that can be served as an apertif, middle course or at the end of a meal. I personally don’t consider these “dessert” wines.

5

Banyuls is a fortified wine made in the Pyrenees made mostly from Grenache Noir.

6

Loire Chenins are some of my favorite wines in general, and the stickies are at the very top as well. They have a broad spectrum of sweetness levels, so they are very flexible in terms of food pairing and mood, can age for an eternity, and are vastly underpriced. They can sometimes take on some unique earthy aromas, which can be a plus for food pairing but may weird out folks looking for a purely sweet wine.

Not to derail the thread from the french focus, but since you seem to be on a sweet wine education quest, Chenin is also making some great sweet wines in South Africa as well, usually going the straw wine rout than botrytis, but with some really exceptional results.

7

Tran - what Matthew said above is good advice. France makes many kinds of sweet wines but the French aren’t the only people who do that and you should explore further. Personally I can’t drink most of the Australian sweet wines, but they make a few late harvest wines and botrytis wines that are quite tasty.

In France as elsewhere, you get wine that is made from late harvest grapes - i.e. leave the grapes on the vine until the sugar levels are very high, you have wine that is made from grapes that have been picked ripe and then dried on straw or something to concentrate the juice, you have wines made with botrytized grapes like those of Sauternes and the Loire, and you have wines that are fortified before all the juice is fermented, much like Ports. All are different and all can be good, depending on who makes the wine.

In the south, you have sweet Muscats like those from Rivesaltes - made by fortifying the must, and similar wine is made in Banyuls and Maury from Grenache. That method is fairly popular - it’s the way they make Port and it’s followed many places around the world including Australia, California, Spain and many other wine regions. Of course, they also make sweet Muscat that is made simply from late harvest grapes and is not fortified and that style of sweetening the wine is probably more widespread - it’s also made in Alsace and in probably every other wine region, including New York. Some of those French wines are made in an open and warm environment as well, so they become oxidized, which makes them resemble Madeira.

In the Rhone, you can find vin de paille, or “straw wine” which is made by drying grapes before crushing them. They call it straw wine because the Romans used to dry the grapes on straw mats, but that’s not always the case any more. At any rate, that wine is also made in Cotes de Jura as well as elsewhere in the world, notably Italy. The sweetness is very different from the fortified wine - it often has notes of toffee without the ripe fruit flavors of the fortified wines (they also lose that quality when they age) and it doesn’t have the burn from the alcohol.

Of course you have the botrytized wines from Sauternes and elsewhere. Those don’t get made as frequently as some of the others mostly because you need very specific conditions to make those wines - generally they’re done in cooler regions. But they are made elsewhere, including Germany and Austria and of course the greatest of all come from Tokaj but those are slightly different in the way they’re made.

I don’t think the French do icewine, although I may be wrong. That’s a relatively new style of wine - these others date back hundreds of years.

Since you’re new to wine, it’s understandable that you don’t know sweet wine other than Sauternes. But mostly that has to do with marketing. Sauternes can be delicious but they are neither the only nor the best sweet wines made in France or elsewhere. The same with Bordeaux in general. The fact that they may be the most expensive is of course, unrelated entirely. You’ll figure that out soon enough though. Happy hunting.

8

Sure they do, cryoextraction in Sauternes.

[wink.gif]

9

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. Just to clarify one point a little, I am familiar with sweet wines from other regions of the world as I count Australian/NZ stickies, Italian Passitos and Quebec Ice Ciders in my current collection. I was looking for tips on French sweet wines specifically which everyone here has more than covered. [welldone.gif]

I did come across the infamous cryoextraction controversy while doing my research on Sauternes. While I don’t consider this anywhere near as bad as lacing your wine with antifreeze or methanol [bullshit.gif], I do agree that this is no longer Sauternes but a form of vin glaciére.

I’ll keep my eye out for some of your recommendations. I have seen Maurys and Banyuls for sale here in Ontario and in Quebec so I’ll have to give some of those a try. Thanks again everyone. [cheers.gif]

10

Tran,

Alsace- any VT or SGN from Gewurtz, Riesling, Pinot Gris or Muscat
Rhone- any Vin de Paille or Muscat Beaumes de Venise
Loire- Quartes des Charmes or any Moelleux
Champagne- any Demi-Sec

All of these are non-fortified.

Hope this helps.

11

Thanks, Kris. Please pardon my lack of knowledge ,may I ask what you mean by the acronyms VT and SGN?

12

VT - Vendage Tardive (late harvest)

SGN - Selections Grains Noble (some botrytis)

13

Tran,

In case Kris doesn’t see your question, VT = Vendange Tardive, or Late Harvest; SGN = Sélection de Grains Nobles, meaning that the grapes (grains) were botrytised (affected with pourriture noble, or noble rot (botrytis)).

14

From Bordeaux (in addition to Sauternes and Barsac):

  • Cérons
  • Sainte-Croix-du-Mont
  • Loupiac
  • Cadillac

From the Loire (in addition to Coteaux du Layon):

  • Coteaux du Layon-Villages
  • Quarts de Chaume
  • Bonnezeaux
  • Vouvray (moelleux or doux)

From the Rhône:

  • Rasteau (vin doux naturel)
  • Muscat de Beaumes de Venise (vin doux naturel)
  • Hermitage (vin de paille)

From Alsace:

  • Gewürztraminer, Tokay d’Alsace, Riesling, and Muscat (vendage tardive or sélection de grains nobles)

From the Jura:

  • Côtes de Jura, Arbois, and L’Étoile (vin de paille)

From Languedoc-Roussillon:

  • Muscat-based vins doux naturel: Muscat de Lunel, Muscat de Mireval, Muscat de Frontignan, Muscat de Saint-Jean-de-Minervois, and Muscat de Rivesaltes
  • Grenache-based vins doux naturel: Rivesaltes, Banyuls, and Maury

From the South-West:

  • Jurançon
  • Monbazillac
  • Côtes de Bergerac (moelleux)
  • Gaillac Premières Côtes (moelleux)
15

Ouch!
[highfive.gif]