Methods of Production
Makers of dessert wines want to produce a wine containing high levels of both sugar and alcohol, yet the alcohol is made from sugar. There are many ways to increase sugar levels in the final wine:
- grow grapes so that they naturally have sugar to spare for both sweetness and alcohol.
- add sugar, either:
- before fermentation as sugar or honey (Chaptalization)
- after fermentation as unfermented must (Süssreserve).
- add alcohol (typically brandy) before all the sugar is fermented, this is called fortification, or 'mutage'.
- remove water to concentrate the sugar:
- In warm climates, by air drying the grapes to make raisin wine
- In frosty climates, by freezing out some of the water to make ice wine
- In damp temperate climates, by using a fungal infection, Botrytis cinerea, to desiccate the grapes with noble rot
Read more about this topic: Dessert Wine
Famous quotes containing the words methods of, methods and/or production:
“All men are equally proud. The only difference is that not all take the same methods of showing it.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Generalization, especially risky generalization, is one of the chief methods by which knowledge proceeds... Safe generalizations are usually rather boring. Delete that “usually rather.” Safe generalizations are quite boring.”
—Joseph Epstein (b. 1937)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)