Sweet Wine Lovers? We're Here for You!

Are you someone who loves sweet wine? Moscato is your go-to wine, but maybe you're wondering if there are other sweet wine options out there to try. But where do you start? Never fear!

Or maybe sweet wines are not your preference, but you're having your family over, and your father-in-law and sister only drink sweet wines. What should you serve them?!?

Everyone knows about Moscato. It's a sweet white wine. Sometimes it's pink. It's made from a grape called Muscat.

We didn't review any Moscatos, because we decided that we'd like to give you some other wines to consider in this category. Who knows, you may find a new favorite!!

Disclaimer: this post is a sweet wine review. We consider sweet wines to be a separate thing from dessert wines, which are decidedly sweeter, and are things like port, madeira, ice wine, etc. Don't worry, a dessert wine review will come along soon (Katie is a big fan).

First in the lineup: we tried the Jacob Heims Riesling Spatlese from Mosel, Germany. Riesling is a white grape that makes both dry (unsweet) and sweet wines. From Germany, they're very often sweet (heads up: Riesling from Alsace, France is dry, so don't buy that if you're wanting sweet wine). They come in varying levels of sweetness, and the definitions behind all this are a little complicated, but as a GENERAL rule, German Rieslings are often labeled as either Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, or Trockenbeerenauslese (Kabinett being often the least sweet, and Trockenbeerenauslese the sweetest). For this tasting, we opted to go with a Spatlese. In our opinion, if you go further along the scale than Spatlese, you get more into the realm of a dessert wine as opposed to a simply sweet wine. Pick your poison.

Get your nose in there. Rieslings often have an aroma of petrol, which can smell as mild as petroleum jelly, or as strong as getting gasoline on your hands at the gas station. I know this sounds really odd, but don't let it put you off! It's a cool quirk of a great wine! This particular Riesling smells a little like the petrol of an oil lamp, but not overpowering. Behind that, it smells like key lime pie and white peaches and honeysuckle. Just like key lime pie, there's just a touch of tart on the front end when you taste it, and then it is a deliciously sweet wine. It feels a little thicker in your mouth as opposed to other white wines, thanks to the sugar inside, which just makes it more delectable.

This wine sells for $20 at Jacob Liquor.

Next up: we try the Villa M Sweet Red, which is a red frizzante (slightly sparkling) wine from Italy made from a grape called Brachetto. You may not have heard of it, but you're going to want to get to know it.

This wine is pretty! It's a beautiful, clear, light red color with little white bubbles, and we were delighted from the moment we poured it. This wine smells like sparkling grape juice, and honestly tastes like it, too, but not in a bad way. Katie wasn't convinced it even had alcohol in it, but it does (5% abv). It's light and bright and tastes like sweet cherries. This is like a party in a glass! You could pour cases of this at a party. If you're a Moscato fan, or you like lambrusco, you should absolutely try this one. Katie can't wait to serve it to her grandpa--he's going to love it. Actually, Bart will serve it to him to earn brownie points.

This wine sells for $18 at Jacob Liquor.

Our last wine is an odd one, but it was kind of an impulse buy when we were out looking for sweet wines. We tried Chocolate Shop, "red wine with natural chocolate flavors." This hails from Walla Walla Valley in Washington state.

This wine delivers exactly what it's selling. It smells like melted chocolate or like chocolate-covered cherries, and it tastes like eating cherry cordials. It's amazing how much it tastes like those lovely chocolate-drizzled fruits. To be honest, Katie didn't have high hopes for this wine, but she was very pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed drinking it. This was a wine experience. This would be fun to pour around at a party, as we think it might be a little rich to drink in large amounts yourself, but we have no judgment for you if you do.

You might be tempted, as anyone would be, to see how this wine pairs with chocolate. Here's something to know about any wine: if you're eating something sweet and drinking wine with it, you want your wine to be sweeter than the food, or it can make your wine taste bitter. That's why honestly most wine does not pair well with chocolate (bummer). As this wine is sweet, though, we've got options here. Lucky for us, when we were tasting this wine, Bart's sister had just brought us some milk and dark chocolate truffles and some chocolate-covered pretzels. It was meant to be! This wine is sweet but not REALLY sweet, so honestly, the sweetest milk chocolate truffle made the wine taste kind of flat. But it was good with the dark chocolate truffle and pretzels, and honestly this would probably be a fun pairing with any dark chocolates.

This is a fun wine. You should check it out!

It sells for $13 at Jacob Liquor.

We didn't give grades to any of these, since we're not really sweet wine drinkers and weren't sure how to properly assign a grade. But if you're a sweet wine drinker, we really think you should check these out. You can give us your thoughts on them, too. And if you know others we should try or want us to try some for you, hit us up!

Sweet wines as a general rule pair well with spicy foods!

If you want to pair it with a sweet food/dessert, make sure the wine is sweeter than the food. Or choose a dessert wine instead.

We actually tried two other wines for this post, but after tasting them, we didn't feel they made the cut. If you're a sweet wine person looking for a sweet wine, these likely aren't what you're looking for:

Quercioli Reggiano Lambrusco, Dolce (a semi-sparkling Lambrusco from Italy)

Clos de Nouys Vouvray demi-sec (a Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley in France)