The world’s greatest value for a sweet wine

Now this is only what I see as the world’s greatest wine value for sweet wines. Many Americans don’t like sweet wines, thinking they’re the equivalent of the Manishewitz dreck that kids (at least Jewish ones) got to sip in days of yore. But some of the world’s greatest wines are sweet wines, a fact recognized by many oenophiles.

Because Americans don’t like sweet wines so much, it’s generally kept the prices of good specimens low.  No longer, though! Americans are beginning to cotton on to the value and quality of these wines, and prices are rising. Sauternes, for example, were a relative bargain in the early Eighties (except, of course, for Château d’Yquem, which has always been expensive). But now all Sauternes are getting expensive, though you can still find sniff out good values.

Likewise, vintage ports—which need to be kept about 12-15 years after the vintage before quaffing—used to be cheap, as well as the presently drinkable tawny ports.  But try buying a vintage port from a good year now for less than $75! (Drink the tawnies or late-bottled vintage ports instead, but tawnies older than 20 years are pricey.)

As for the great sweet German wines—Beerenausleses and Trockenbeerenausleses—forget it. If you can find them, you can’t afford them.

Let me add, before I give my recommendation, that I prefer drinking sweet wines on their own rather than with food, including dessert. Chocolate, which kills the palate for any good wine, is a no-no, and yet once the sommelier at The French Laundry, of all places, once given free rein to make our wine-and-food pairing, served us a Sauternes with a chocolate dessert.  It was awful!  Thomas Keller, the owner, heard from me and my friend about that and other missteps during our $500 (each!) meal, but we got no reply

There are two exceptions to my sweet-wines-alone rule. First, as the French have discovered, Sauternes or their equivalents go well with foie gras and toasted baguette at the beginning of a meal. The saltiness of the foie gras is cut by the sweetness of the wine, and, although I haven’t had this pairing in a while, it does make gustatory sense. In fact, it’s damn good.

Second, a Sauternes is a perfect accompaniment to a ripe mango or peach. But nothing else! Otherwise, drink sweet wines on their own, ideally as a postprandial drink with friends.

Sweet sherries are often good, too, and the sweeter the better, as far as I’m concerned (I do like the dry ones, too: a good fino is the perfect aperitif, and if you see someone order a fino or a manzanilla before dinner instead of a martini, you know you’re in the company of someone who knows their food and wine).

But I’ll present a sweet wine that I’ve been drinking for years. It’s world class, a bottle can last you about a week, for you need only a very small glass, and it’s only $25 a bottle, as well as being widely available.

Lustau is a reliable name for all sherries, but this one, their named Pedro Ximenez (look for the “San Emilio” name), is one of the sweetest of the lot (they do make an unfindable “Tintillo de Rota” that is sweeter, but it’s not quite as tasty).

Pedro Ximenez is the name of the grape used to make this wine. It’s also used to add sweetness to other sherries, like Olorosos, but this wine is made solely of Pedro Ximenez grapes, called “PX”. It’s a white wine grape, but produces a wine that’s the color of motor oil. This is accomplished by drying out grapes under the sun, intensifying their flavor and sweetness, and then pressing the grapes only when they are fairly dry, producing a smaller amount of an intensely flavored liquid whose sugars are concentrated.

Here’s a bit from Wikipedia on how the Spanish use PX to make sherry:

After harvest the Pedro Ximénez grapes are traditionally laid out on mats to further desiccate and dry in the sun (in a style similar to straw wine production). The high sugar and low acid wine made from these pressings may be fortified or not, depending on winemaker style, but will usually be very sweet and have a strong aroma and flavor of raisins. The wine may also be aged in a solera, Montilla-Moriles similar to Sherry, with the age of the solera often stated on the wine label. Additionally, some Pedro Ximénez grapes are used as sweetening agents for other wines made in the Montilla-Moriles region.

This link gives Lustau’s own brief description of this wine, noting that it’s aged for 12 years after vintage.  That aging makes the $25 price tag even more of a bargain (I buy my bottles here, and nearly always have one on hand). Once you open a bottle, it will last for days and days; I don’t even bother to put it under vacuum for the week 0r so it takes me to consume it, as it doesn’t lose any flavor.

And WHAT a flavor! My routine is to pour out a very small glass (I get about eight or nine glasses per bottle), and sip it while reading a book in bed. The flavor is, well, a thick combination of prune and raisin flavors, and stays on the tongue for many minutes after a sip. Thus I take one sip about every ten minutes or so.  It’s fantastic, but you have to like a sweet wine that tastes like raisins and prunes.   Try it if if sounds good, and let me know how you like it. Remember—it’s SWEET!

I’ve often wondered how it would taste when poured over vanilla ice cream (some places recommend that), but I’ve never tried it.

Here’s what you’re looking for. It shouldn’t cost more than $28, and remember, when you get eight or nine episodes of pleasure from this one bottle, it’s not so expensive: