Madeira’s Malvasia – Cândida or São Jorge?


North coast of Madeira © IVBAM

Malvasia, also called Malmsey, is probably the best known and most appreciated wine from Madeira. In earlier times it was almost exclusively made from Malvasia Cândida. However, the grape variety is very susceptible to Oidium and also somewhat capricious when it comes to its location. Probably because of this, there was already too little Malvasia wines in earlier years

Read more …

Willems-Willems’ Euchariusberg Auslese 2018

Viticulture near Krettnach Jacquesverlaeken, CC BY-SA 3.0

The vines for Saar wines thrive on or near the Saar between Serrig and Konz. 80% of the vineyards there are planted with Riesling. We tasted a Riesling Auslese Krettnacher Euchariusberg 2018 from the Willems-Willems winery. A selection of vines that are located a little higher in the side valley of Krettnach and Niedermennig and as a result thrive in cooler locations,

Read more …

Plageoles’ Vin d’Autan 2005

Tarn in Gaillac from Didier Descouens — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Gaillac is located in the center of the southwestern French wine-growing region of the same name, from which the sweet wine tasted this time comes. The wine-growing region north-west of Toulouse, on the Tarn – with 9,000 hectares of vineyards and around a third of which are appellations – is characterized above all by its often regionally autochthonous grape varieties and the range of wine styles.

Read more …

Furmint Auslese from the Ruster gravel

Vineyards near Rust

Furmint comes from the Tokaj region in northeastern Hungary, known for its sweet Aszú wines called Tokaji. The late ripening of the variety, the loose grapes with their thin-skinned berries and above all the susceptibility to noble rot (botrytis) make the variety very suitable for the production of sweet wines. However, Furmint also delivers first-class, fiery, full-bodied,

Read more …

Markus Molitor’s Auslese*** from 2005

Markus Molitor shows how the consistent implementation of quality standards can become a story of success. Since taking over his father’s winery in 1984, he has constantly expanded it, as he has consistently pursued the goal he formulated of building on the golden days of Riesling from the Mosel with wines that are extremely typical of the location and can be stored.

Read more …

Tokaj’s Late Harvest from yellow muscat

Yellow Muscat © CIVR Jean-Marie Goheynex

Sárga Muskotály, also known in this country as Yellow Muscat, is a grape variety permitted for production in Tokaji. It gives the wine a strong aroma and a balanced acidity.
Most sweet Tokaji wines are aged for at least two years. Since the 1990s, there has been an increasing number of Tokaji wines that have been matured reductively, i.e. wines that are matured largely without contact with atmospheric oxygen. These wines are already 12 – 18 months after the harvest on sale and are mostly offered as Late Harvest (in Hungarian: Késői Szüretelésű).

Read more …

Do sweet wines make one fat?


Petis Tours und Süßweine harmonieren ausgezeichnet,

Without a reason, I would not have come up with this question so quickly. Sure, wine has alcohol and it has calories, as we all know. It was the first time I heard that someone refuses a glass of sweet wine for dessert on the grounds that it might make fat because of its calories. I had never tried to get information about calories in sweet wine or wine. So I googled “calories in wine” and on a discounter’s website found the information that the alcohol content (in %) multiplied by 5.5 gives the number of kliocalories per 100 ml of wine. According to a table on this page, a … Read more ...