Making it sweet
Sweetness means leaving residual sugar — by stopping fermentation early, or by concentrating sugar in the grape so the yeast can’t finish.
- Noble rot (botrytis) — a benevolent fungus shrivels grapes, concentrating sugar and adding honeyed complexity: Sauternes, Tokaji, German Beerenauslese.
- Late harvest — simply picking very ripe, sugar-rich grapes.
- Drying (passito) — air-drying grapes to raisins concentrates the sugar: Vin Santo and sweet Recioto della Valpolicella (the same drying, fermented dry, gives Amarone).
- Ice wine / Eiswein — pressing grapes frozen on the vine, leaving the water as ice.