On one side, the sweet wines: beautiful and often good, ready to put a little sensuality in our taste lives. On the other hand, the natural sweet wines: atypical and “fortified”, muscat type and porto, perfect before and after meals. Face-to-face.
by
His name is a definition, no more or less. A little dry, for a sweet wine. But the adjective is tender, and has the merit of his clarity. A wine is called liquorous since its residual sugar (that is to say in the bottle) is greater than 45 grams per liter. This posed, he can happily exceed 150 grams per liter in the vials of Sauternes or the richest tokays Hungarian. Knowing about 17 grams of sugar to get 1 degree of alcohol, I let you take your calculator and evaluate the amount of sugar present in the juice before fermentation (we are often more than 300 grams per liter).
To understand the birth of a liquorous, it is in the vineyard that it happens. The clusters that are devolved to him have enough to fascinate. Some people get older so long that they display a fear of scare. According to the regions, according to the traditions, there are the clusters that are allowed to dry up, to be tabulished, those, more languid, which dehydrate on a bed of straw, those hanging with a wire (the wines then obtained. are throbbed). And then there are those we harvest frozen, imprisoned with a winter hull, as in Germany, Austria, Canada, with the famous ice wine. Finally, there are the luckier, perhaps the most frightening too, the clusters affected by noble rot. The Botrytis Cinerea is the name of this greyish mushroom, draws the water from the grapes, accelerates its drying while magnifying the aromas and the structure of the wine to come. It’s ugly to look but good to suck.
Almost all French vineyard regions are bottled of great liquorous: the Bordelais with its inevitable Sauternes (as well as its AOC satellites, Loupiac, Cerons, Sainte-Croix-du-Mont …), the southwest that has its own A Ribambelle, Monbazillac, Jurança, Pacherenc-du-Vic-Bilh, Gaillac Late harvest to name only. The Loire has its thatched, quarters-de-thatch and Bonnezeaux; Alsace deploys late harvests and selections of noble grains throughout the vineyard; The Jura cherishes his precious straw wine.
Very difficult to produce, very low in returns, the sweetness is unprofitable and the winemakers who devote their efforts to engage in a real priesthood. For consumers, and on the condition of finding with what to drink, the sweetness is nothing complicated. It is self-sufficient, with his calories and gluttony, it is beautiful, often good, always ready to show you what life has more sensual.
You have 45.75% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.