5 Types of Sweet Wine

Hey guys, it's Chad with Beverage Professor, the channel designed to teach you about all things alcohol. Hey, today we're going to talk about sweet wines. You know, I'm in stores a lot and like the other day, I had this younger kid, probably 21, 22 years old, was walking around the department, the wine department, he would pick up various bottles and read the back labels and put them down and kept looking at other areas and picking them up, look down. And then he got on his phone, he started googling or looking up stuff on his phone. I just went, I just asked him, I'm like, hey man, is there something I can help you find or figure out? And he's like, you know, he goes, my dad let me try a wine last night. He's a big wine drinker and I kind of want to learn more about wine, but he let me try this wine last night and I didn't like it. I go, well, what did he have you try? And he said, it was a Cabernet and I said, oh, that might be the problem. If you're new to wine and you try a dry style red wine, you're probably not going to like it. Another situation I've had is where I've been doing wine tastings and one time I remember a lady came up to the table, she was trying different wines and her husband was just standing there, you know, and I was like, well, what, you know, what can I get you? And he's like, oh no, I don't drink wine, man. He goes, I, uh, I don't like wine because wine's, I'm a beer drinker, you know, and I'm like, all right. I said, well, I'll tell you what, let me, let me try you on something, see if you like it. So I poured him something sweeter and, uh, he tried it and he tasted it and he's like, damn, that's pretty good. And I was like, it's like, there you go. So you do like wine, you know, and he's like, well, yeah, I've never had anything like this. And I said, well, yeah, exactly. Because most people will try something red and dry and immediately be like, I don't like wine. All of it. Don't like wine. Can't drink wine. Be like going and say you try chocolate for the first time and you get a 92% chocolate bar. You know, 92% dark chocolate, very bitter, very dry. And immediately you'd be like, I don't like chocolate, you know, but then if I took you and said, hey, try this milk chocolate, you'd probably like it. So today I'm going to go through five sweet wines that you can find pretty much anywhere. So the first wine we're going to talk about, I don't even have a bottle of it here. It's white Zinfandel. Um, white Zinfandel is a pink wine. It's made from the red Zinfandel grape, but it is, um, so basically the, the grape is, is red in color. And when you squeeze that grape, the juice comes out clear and then they put the skins in contact with the juice for just a short period of time. And that gives it that blush. Now that being said, two things, not all pink wines are sweet because you might find rosés, which I have a bottle of rosé right here. It just says rosé. It's probably not going to be sweet. So don't think that all pink is sweet. And the second thing is do not get mixed up. If you see Zinfandel on the label, if it's a red wine and it's Zinfandel, then it's going to be dry and it's going to be nothing you would probably want to drink if you're a sweet wine drinker. So our next wine is Moscato or Muscat. So usually you'll see it as Moscato on the labels or Moscato D'Asti. You might see that. So this one is a Moscato D'Asti. So these wines are very sweet. Great upsell if you do have white Zinfandel on a wine list or something like that and you want to try something different or you want somebody to try something different. Moscato or Moscato D'Asti would be perfect. I think most people seem to like Moscato D'Asti's better. It's what I'm seeing more as a trend, but they're again, both going to be sweet, just a little different style. There you go. See, we got just a little effervescence, just a little frizzante. We're going to try this. Yeah. And it's so sweet. It's very rich, very refreshing though too. So if you want a sweet wine. Now this same grape, if you're familiar with like D'Asti, D'Asti, Spumantes, you know, the champagne style, the sparkling wine styles, it's the same grape that goes into that. All right. Just made in a different style. Our next wine is Riesling. Now I can do a whole video on Riesling, just on Riesling and I probably will eventually because there's a lot to learn about Riesling and it can get kind of confusing. You know, I've been doing this a long time and there's still, it's just, there's so many little things to learn about Riesling. So I'm going to make this very basic and then we'll do another video later. So you probably just want to stick to German Riesling. They're usually, to me, seem to be the sweeter style. That's also where it all started was in Germany with Riesling. And just a entry level, usually about $10, $12 price point. This is Smithsonian. They do another product called Relax Riesling, both very similar. And just, you know, with Riesling, the main thing is there's, like I said, a lot of terms. Don't get confused by all of it. Try to find one that just says Riesling on the bottle. If it says other things like Cabernet and Speck Lacy, all that, those are just ripeness levels and again, I don't want to get into all the details on all of those. Just find one that says Riesling. That's probably the best way for you to start. Now if you see on the label Trocken, then that means it's going to be dry. So don't start with that, all right? But you can also find Rieslings from California and Washington and various areas. Sometimes if they're going to make a drier style Riesling, they'll just put on there dry Riesling. Some Riesling bottles on the back label will have a sweetness scale. And like this one here, this is exactly how it's going to look. So they'll just start with dry, medium dry, medium sweet, and sweet. And then it'll have this arrow right here pointing to what level it is. So if it is a, this one here says medium sweet. I'm going to pour a little and I'm going to have a little for myself. Now one other thing with Riesling, one of the characteristics, now it's not in every single type of Riesling, but sometimes the characteristic is that of like petrol. So when you smell it, again, not all, but some will have a petrol smell, which means something like gas or, you know, I don't care scene smell and stuff. So I know that sounds terrible and I just don't want you to be like, if you smell that thinking that something's wrong with the wine or that it's going to harm you in any way or anything like that. So it's not, it's going to be fine and the taste is not going to be anything like the smell. Okay. So go ahead and give it a shot and try it. All right. So that one now, again, not as sweet, it's not as sweet as the Moscato. It's a little bit, kind of a step up from Moscato. All right. We're going to move to some reds now, some sweet reds. And I'm going to go to, so we did Moscato and I said earlier that there are 200 variations of the Muscat grape. Okay. It can also be made as a dark grape, a red grape, and this is from the black Muscat. So I'm doing Quatti here. This is Quatti's Red Electra, but these are great wines. You know, you'll find bottles out there sometimes just labeled red Moscato and those are going to be sweet as well. I mean, all of them are going to be sweet. I don't know that they all are made from 100% Moscato. They might have some, you know, some blending in or whatever. But this will be 100% or to my knowledge, 100% black Muscat. Now, this one will not have any kind of bubble like the Moscato D'Asti had. This is just going to be a still wine, sweet and very, very rich. Another thing with all of these, you'll chill, even the reds. And I know a lot of times when you're drinking red wine, they always say, keep them at room temperature or whatever. But the sweeter reds, you can chill them down a little bit, have them a little cold. So try that. But that is a very sweet wine. Next is Brachetto. So the Brachetto grape, it might say Brachetto de Cui. You know, you're probably not going to be able to walk in the store and go, hey, I want a Brachetto. And most people aren't going to know it and you might not even be able to see it on the label. It might not say Brachetto anywhere on the label. You might be able to find it on the back of the label sometimes. You might see what, you know, if they give a grape variety on the back, it might say 100% Brachetto or something like that. So look for that on the back if not. A lot of times, and this will be a product of Italy usually, well, always will be a product of Italy. And it might say Rosso Dolce on the label. It might just say Rosso. Don't get confused though because not everything that says Rosso is going to be sweet, but look for maybe Rosso Dolce. Or like in this case, this one just says semi-sweet. So it gives you a good, you know, idea that it's going to be sweet. And this is also, what's neat is it's going to have a little bit of effervescence as well, kind of like the Moscato D'Asti did. So when we pour this, I'll show you, and it's going to have that just slight frizzante bubble. Okay, see that? And again, very sweet, very sweet. Not quite as sweet as this, of course, but hey. These have been extremely popular as well. There's some out in the market called Sella Rosa, I think Risotto makes one. This one is Lucio, this winery, Lucio, makes them. So there's quite a few out there. These ones tend to be a little lower in alcohol, around about five or six percent. But those are some good sweet wines for you. Hopefully you got some information out of this video and now you won't go out and waste money trying to figure out what you're going to like or waste time walking around a wine department trying to figure out if it's going to be sweet or dry or whatever. If you want a sweet wine or you're a beginner, these would be perfect for you to start with. If you're getting a lot out of this, I appreciate it. Please tell your friends, hit the subscribe button and watch more of my content and tell everybody, all right? Pass along. What I want to do is educate. I want to teach you guys. I want to help you make good buying decisions. I want to help you, if you're a waiter, waitress, hey, you can make more money by learning about wine or liquor and make better tips. Cheers.