The Versatility of Pairing Sweet Wines with Food
As we mentioned in our previous article about sweet wine, in recent years sweet wines have been left behind in favor of dry wines. Now, however, people are rediscovering their love for sweet wines, and learning that, just like their dry counterparts, high quality sweet wines can pair with all types of food, not just desserts. It comes down to understanding what is a well made sweet wine, and understanding some of the basics of pairing theory. Then the fun begins!
Sweet wines can pair will with fresh fruits, like apricots.
First and foremost…
All good wines start in the vineyard. If the fruit isn’t good then either the wine won’t be good or the winemaker may be drawn to tinker, which could lead to some unnatural intervention, or, sometimes, which is the case with many small winegrowers, like the ones Vero supports, the winery will forego a vintage completely and not make a particular wine that year.
One key aspect to an exceptional wine is when the ‘structural’ elements of the wine, like acidity, balance with the ‘softening’ elements, like sugar. This contributes to an overall harmonic experience when tasting the wine. A really good sweet wine needs acidity to counter the sweetness and leave your mouth ‘clean’ after swallowing. The acidity is also an important component to allow a sweet wine to pair well with food.
Dessert Pairings
Pairing sweet wines with desserts is the most common pairing approach with sweet wines. One theory of food and wine pairing is that the sugar in desserts and sweetness of dessert wines work well to complement each other; hence it is also referred to as a complementary pairing.
Let’s start with cookies. Many Italian restaurants in America offer a traditional pairing of vin santo (a Tuscan dessert wine, or passito) with cantucci (classic Italian biscotti). But across Italy, Italians pair many types of cookies with many types of dessert wines, such as an Erbaluce Passito made from the Erbaluce white grape in Piedmont or Vigna Petrussa Desiderio, a Friulian passito made from a blend of 3 white grapes from the Friuli region in Italy.
Moving onto cakes, sweet wines made from white grapes, generally pair with cakes that are not chocolate based like this fig strudel recipe.
Moving onto chocolate based desserts, you would do better pairing with a sweet wine made from red grapes like Quinta de Valbom LBV Port or Vigna Petrussa Perla Nera, made with 100% air dried Schioppettino red grape from Friuli in Northern Italy.
You can try as well Sweet Albana with a sweet snack like the Italian cheese squacquerone on toasted bread.
You could also experiment with pairing fruit with dessert wine. Think about the flavors already present in sweet wines and pick similar fruits. Light stone fruits (peaches and apricots) will go better with white sweet wines, while darker fruits (plums and berries) will pair better with red sweet wines.
Sweet + Savory = Adventurous Pairings
We encourage you to embrace your own palette preferences, as discussed in our previous article, and keep an open mind to try new types of wines and food pairings because you never know what will surprise and delight you.
Sweet wines can also be paired with savory dishes, not just desserts for amazing effects that just aren’t always possible with dry wines. They play more into the contrasting flavor profiles of pairing.
Picolit is one of the most sought after sweet wines in the world.
Sweet wine and cheese is a classic pairing. Then sweet wines made with noble rot, such as Vigna Petrussa Picolit, do well to have their sweetness cut with fatty foie gras or sharp aged cheeses.
Other foods that can pair well with sweet wines are acidic or salty dishes. In these cases, the flavors are contrasting and the tartness or salt can help to cut the sweetness of the wine. People that love salted caramel, or salty/sweet trail mix will enjoy the contrasting flavor of salty treats paired with sweet wines. Similarly, tangy foods like vinaigrettes can benefit from a sweeter wine, giving a hint of both acidity and sweetness.
Many Asian dishes pair with certain sweet wines, like a lighter sweet wine, such as Braschi Sweet Albana: the low-alcohol sweetness of this white wine might surprise you! Try sweet wines with intensely spicy dishes too: alcohol can augment the spicy sensations on the palate, but tampered with sweetness and sugar, the two round out to lower the heat on certain dishes.
Last on our savory foods lists works in a little bit of complementary pairing as well. Dishes that have sweet saucy elements, like a sweet honey barbeque sauce, can have that sweet element elevated by pairing it with a sweet wine.
Where can you find high quality sweet wines for the best pairing?
We got them! We’ve done the ‘hard work’ of seeking out and tasting many sweet wines from artisanal producers making sure that, not only does it taste good, but that it has that right balance of acidity and sweetness. With so many options for pairing, there is no reason to leave sweet wines off your next menu. Try experimenting to discover new and exciting flavors that will surprise and delight you!
What will you pair your sweet wines with? Savory or Sweet? Or maybe… try both!
