How To Serve Dessert Wine
by Troy Temke
The world offers us a wide variety of sweet and luxurious dessert wines, and luckily enough they're all relatively easy to manage. Dessert wines are typically chilled, and can be served in a good old-fashioned wine glass (with the exception of sparkling dessert wines - use a fluted glass).
Since dessert wines are much, much (much!) sweeter than your everyday Pinot Noir, you'll want to keep the serving size at about half the usual pour. Two to three ounces should do the trick, unless you're a certain Floating Cork editor and you feel like taking down an entire bottle of Inniskillin while proclaiming "this is SO good!" with each pour.
In short: serve chilled, pour small , and don't be afraid to experiment and try a wide variety of the many dessert wines of the world.
WINE |
CHILL BOTTLE
|
DECANT |
Muscat
Including Orange Muscat, Black Muscat, Moscato, Moscato d'Asti, Muscat Canelli, and Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise |
yes |
no |
| Sparkling Dessert Wines and Demi-Sec Champagnes |
yes |
no |
| Ice Wines and Eiswein |
yes |
no |
Maderia
Bual, Maimsey |
during warm months, slightly chilled |
no |
Sherry
Amontillado, Palo Cortado, Oloroso, Pedro Ximénez |
no |
no |
| Port |
slightly chilled |
no |
| Tawny |
no |
no |
| Ruby, Ruby Reserve |
no |
no |
| Late Bottled Vintage |
no |
yes |
Vintage
Single Quinta |
no |
yes |
Australian Port-style Wines
Australian Fine Liqueur Tawny
Australian Fortified Muscat and Tokay |
no |
no |
Late Harvest White Wines and Botrytized Wines
Including Sauternes, Barsac, Late Harvest Reisling, Late Harvest Semillion, Hungarian Tokaji, Sweet Vouvray |
yes (with Tokaji Aszú, serve slightly chilled) |
no |
Late Harvest Reds
Including Zinfandel |
no |
no |
|
|
