Port and fortified wines (31)

Port and fortified wines

Naturally sweet wines

The first group are wines that have a natural alcohol content. For example Auslese, Trockenbeerenauslese or Beerenauslese from the Riesling variety. Even a lighter alternative with 20 grams of residual sugar, mild acidity and an alcohol content of about 8% can be an excellent dessert wine if they are not too sweet.

Naturally sweet wines with botrytis

Botrytis is a fungus that perforates the skin of grapes, allowing water to evaporate from the berry. Typical Slovak wines are from the Tokaj region.

Straw wines, Passito

The second group are wines whose grapes are dried after harvesting. A typical representative is Amarone della Valpolicella and Passito from Italy. In both versions, the ripe grapes are stored on straw mats for several weeks or months. Then the grapes are pressed and stored with a high sugar content and a natural alcohol content of about 15%. In Slovakia, this type of winemaking is called straw wine.

Fortified wines

The third group of wines to which alcohol is added to stop fermentation. In some variants of these wines, the ripe grapes are dried in the sun for several weeks. Port wine /Graham's/, Sherry /Ximenéz-Spínola, Romate/ and Madeira /Blandy's/

Fortified and sweet wines by the sailor's ways.

It was mainly the English who transported large quantities of wine by sea. For this reason, the wines were enriched with alcohol, because it acts as a stabilizer. During the transport of Madeira wines, it was found that the wines benefited from the long journey to the distant colonies, exposed to the elements and above all to the heat.