Muscat – All about sweet wines

Tokaj’s Late Harvest from yellow muscat

26. January 202321. January 2023 by Karl-Heinz Datum

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).

Esszencia – Top category of the Tokaji wines

9. September 20223. August 2022 by Karl-Heinz Datum

Vineyards in Tokaj © Pecold – Fotolia.com

It was a very generous birthday present from Hans, Szepsy’s Tokaji Esszencia 1999, which we tasted together with other friends a few weeks ago. Esszencia, not Aszú Escenzia, is the top category of sweet Tokaji wine. You can see that from the fact that it is made from the so-called flow must of the grapes, which is created by the own weight of the grapes, which are in steel

Kabir – Donnafugata’s Moscato di Pantelleria

12. July 20225. July 2022 by Karl-Heinz Datum

Pantelleria is best known for its capers, which are said to be the best in the world. Belonging geologically to the African continent, the Italian island, also known as the Island of the Winds, is only around 50 km east of Tunisia, but around 100 km south of Sicily.

Prošek – Sweet wine of Dalmatia

27. September 201921. September 2019 by Karl-Heinz Datum

The sweet wine Prošek, pronounced Proschek, is rare in Germany under this name, because Croatia has forgotten to protect this product name with its joining of the EU. Although not to be confused with Prosecco, the name Prošek can only be used in Croatia because of its similarity to Prosecco.

Piamater – Andalusian Vino Naturalmente Dulce

23. January 202115. August 2019 by Karl-Heinz Datum

The name Piamater is somewhat unusual for a sweet wine, especially for me as a neurobiologist, who knows Pia Mater as the innermost cerebral membran. Less unusual today is that two wineries together produce one wine, in this case the oenologist Alicia Eyaralar from the winery Tandem in Navarre, together with the Andalusian winery Dimobe.

Rosenmuskateller – South Tyrol’s sweet red wine

3. August 201918. July 2019 by Karl-Heinz Datum

Moscato Rosa del Trentino – called in South Tyrol Rosenmuskateller – a grape variety that is found almost exclusively in northern Italy and especially in South Tyrol, does not come from Sicily, as often claimed in Italy, but most likely from Dalmatia. In this respect, the synonym of the variety Moscato Rosa del Trentino is a bit misleading, as far more than 85% of the approximately 100 hectares of the Italian Rosenmuskateller vineyards are in South Tyrol. Outside Italy you … Read more ...

Massandra – Wine of the Tsars

29. July 20193. June 2019 by Karl-Heinz Datum

In Massandra, a town near Yalta in the Crimea, wine is produced for more than 240 years, especially sweet wine, in a variety of styles, many of them copies of well known wine styles like Madeira, port, sherry or Tokay and Sauternes. The Winery Massandra, in its present form was commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II at the end of the 19th century in order to provide his royal hosehold, especially in his nearby summer palace Livadia with wine and sparkling wine.

Multiple varied Vin Doux Naturel

29. August 20192. April 2019 by Karl-Heinz Datum

Hans had invited to a wine tasting and announced to offer only one or two small courses – however, there were much more courses. Hans just returned from a journey through Roussillon and the Rhone Valley, where he had bought a variety of Vin Doux Naturel. For the dessert, a chocolate cake with honey olive jelly, he opened some of them.

Elysium Black Muscat – Californian Scent of Heaven

2. March 20218. January 2019 by Karl-Heinz Datum

Black Muscat: never heard of it – but maybe already eaten? Muscat Hamburg, as the grape is called in Great Britain, is used in many countries mainly as a table grape, because of its ability to survive long transport routes very well.

But there are also dry wines of Muscat Hamburg , such as in Eastern Europe or Württemberg. Dessert wines are also produced in Württemberg as well as in California, where exists more than 100 hectares of … Read more ...

Szamorodni èdes – the “small Ausbruch”

21. January 201927. September 2018 by Karl-Heinz Datum

Wineyards in Tokaj © Pecold – Fotolia.com

Szamorodni, a word of the Polish language means “as grown”, which means in this case, that for these wines, the grapes are harvested as they are currently on the vine, so not only the berries infested by noble rot are selected, as it is the case with the harvest for the Tokaji aszú. Whether the so-harvested bunch of grapes produce the dry Szaomordni száraz or the sweet Szamorodni édes depends largely on the percentage of grapes infested by Botrytis (noble rot), because those have a higher sugar content than ripe grapes. The main part of the harvested grapes

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