The wine-sugar

If wine-alcohol has been the dominus of the wine scene for millennia, in each time it has had to cede a small but most prominent part of the proscenium to the wine-sugar. Because from time immemorial and until the early twentieth century, if the alcohol content was the primary attraction, being sweet was the discriminating element between the wine of the vulgar and that of the powerful, that of taverns and that of royal tables, the former drunk seated on a bench, the latter lounging limply on a triclinium.

The two sides of sweet wines

The twentieth century can rightly be called the century of the redemption of dry wines and the century of the demise of sweet wines, whose universe has sharply split in two: On the one hand, those of low quality, almost always fizzy or sparkling, made to capture ignorant palates, to cheer popular festivals and wedding banquets; on the other, the noble lineage of passiti, botrytized, late harvests, so refined and extreme that sweetness becomes a marginal element, almost an unavoidable accident, at best a kind of base whose function is to support, and thus enhance, the abnormal array of aromas and flavors that they manage to concentrate in a small goblet.

The former are quantitatively the most popular and can generate strong gains, although they are difficult to consolidate: ignorance is always transitory and palates either evolve by landing on better wines, or regress by becoming easy prey to soft drinks, colas and ales.

The latter represent a small niche market, marginal in terms of overall turnover but extremely significant in terms of image Of those who produce them. They are, in short, exercises in style, pieces of bravura in which one throws oneself into the pursuit of open applause, no matter if the box office cries later, complaining that there were more guests than paying spectators.

Article from “RuvidaMente,” courtesy of author Stefano Milioni:


The 6 Faces of Planet Wine – RuvidaMente by Milioni