1993 Le Marigny Domaine des Aubuisières, Vouvray Moelleux Bernard Fouquet
One of my stock rants or hobby-horses is the UK’s wine trade’s absurd practice of calling sweet wines – dessert wines. Not only does this quite unnecessarily restrict the occasions that people consider opening a bottle of sweet wine but also they often don’t match desserts well – often they can be a disaster. A sweet dessert accentuates the wine’s acidity and sharply reduces a wine’s sweetness.
Take this fine 1993 Vouvray moelleux from Bernard Fouquet, which we drunk this August with some cheese. 1993 is an unheralded vintage but Bernard’s moelleux is now showing very well – honeyed and delicately sweet it is ideal with cheese especially various blues – that classic combination of sweet and salty. It would probably also worked well with pork noisettes with prunes and a cream sauce – a typical Touraine dish. Equally well I suspect with a rich poulet à la crème and probably magret de canard with a sweet sauce, whose sweetness often clashes with a red.
I did once serve a straight 1994 Coteaux du Layon from Patrick Baudouin with pheasant à la Normande. It was a delicious combination with the cream apple and Calvados.
Bernard's 1993 would not have worked with a dessert – so why continue to use the term dessert wine? Do we have sausage wines?
One of my stock rants or hobby-horses is the UK’s wine trade’s absurd practice of calling sweet wines – dessert wines. Not only does this quite unnecessarily restrict the occasions that people consider opening a bottle of sweet wine but also they often don’t match desserts well – often they can be a disaster. A sweet dessert accentuates the wine’s acidity and sharply reduces a wine’s sweetness.
Take this fine 1993 Vouvray moelleux from Bernard Fouquet, which we drunk this August with some cheese. 1993 is an unheralded vintage but Bernard’s moelleux is now showing very well – honeyed and delicately sweet it is ideal with cheese especially various blues – that classic combination of sweet and salty. It would probably also worked well with pork noisettes with prunes and a cream sauce – a typical Touraine dish. Equally well I suspect with a rich poulet à la crème and probably magret de canard with a sweet sauce, whose sweetness often clashes with a red.
I did once serve a straight 1994 Coteaux du Layon from Patrick Baudouin with pheasant à la Normande. It was a delicious combination with the cream apple and Calvados.
Bernard's 1993 would not have worked with a dessert – so why continue to use the term dessert wine? Do we have sausage wines?
Hi Jim,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100% that not all sweet wines match desserts.
However, the answer to your question strangely enough seems 'yes' - if you ask some people in the U.K. trade, that is!
Here's what I came across on another commercial blog some time ago:
“Sausage wine is a description coined by Tony Mason, Majestic’s Trading Director who retired several years ago. It describes a red wine that is good value rather than expensive, more on the rustic side than fine, but interesting and characterful - in other words, the kind of wine Majestic staff would drink with sausages.”
http://blog.majestic.co.uk/2008/03/02/sausage-wine/
Hm,... food for thought?
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI do agree - and of course it applies all the more to Loire wines which are not as sweet as say a Sauternes or a trockenbeerausgelese. However, in fairness to the trade I think the term sweet wine was degraded by some really awful muck in the past and hence the usage sweet wine became untoucable- still that is a long time ago now so perhaps they should get over it.
That said I do tend to keep genuinely sweet wines for desserts and fois gras. Less sweet wines eg from the Mosel are of course stunning aperatives - though I prefer a demi-sec Vouvray to a moelleux for that.
(and I agree with Mr Meekers that a good wine to drink with a good sausage is indeed a find)
Graham
Hi Georges and Susan
ReplyDeleteThanks for your messages. I'm happy to acknowledge Tom Mason's term as a one-off. I have nothing against drinking wine with sausages or finding wines that are suitable to drink with them, but sausage wines is not a category in general parlance as dessert wines mistakenly is.
Sorry should have been Graham not Susan - my apologies.
ReplyDeleteJim
Well put Jim.
ReplyDeleteSweet wines should be drunk instead of dessert.
The best wines to match a sweet Christmas Pudding for example is not IMHO the classic Christmas pudding in a glass - PX, but a crisp Champagne or quality mature yeasty Cava - Yin & Yang.
PX is great on its own or with almond biscuits.
But there is an excellent range of wine to drink with spicy food ( If I may say so myself)
Best
Warren Edwardes
http://wineforspice.cm
http://stickywines.co.uk
Thanks Warren. I take your point about ying and yang but am less convinced than you and the French that sparkling wine and desserts are a good match. IMO it often makes the fizz taste thin and acidic.
ReplyDeleteCertainly we are in agreement over sweet wines enjoyed by themselves.
" ... that sparkling wine and desserts are a good match. IMO it often makes the fizz taste thin and acidic. "
ReplyDeleteIn theory it should make the fizz less acidic as the acid will counteract the sugar in the dessert and vice versa. Just like adding a mega dosage to fizz.
OTOH by my own "logic" a sweet wine should go well with a sorbet.