Sweet Wines
2017 Gold: 2 Silver: 10 Bronze: 10 Commended: 9
2016 Gold: 8 Silver: 10 Bronze: 2 Commended: 5
Unless your venue is lucky enough to get large groups with deep pockets on a regular basis, stickies seem to be a style relying almost entirely on by the glass sales – probably with a fair bit of pushing from your team.
It’s the reason why, although the quality was high (as usual) this year, we limited ourselves to a carefully curated number of Gold medals for our wine list after the, frankly, incontinent enthusiasm of 2016!
The main beneficiary of this new, stricter approach was Canada’s Peller Estate, which more or less cornered the (very) top end of our Gold list with some spectacular Icewines. Below that the medals were more or less evenly shared out between the rest of the sweet wine producing world.
Every venue should have a couple of these, though. As a dessert substitute for full (or healthy) diners they’re a great way to end the meal. An area where a little imagination goes a long way.
FROM THE TASTING TEAMS
‘Yum Yum.’ Hamish Anderson, Tate Catering
‘People don’t necessarily ask for sweet wines, you have to push it. Still, we sell more of it than we do port.’ Agustin Trapero, Avenue
‘By the glass, these are the kind of wines that can go easily, especially if you match them with food. And they work well in a Coravin. We offer them in 50 or 100ml serves.’ Daniele Di Blasio, Pollen Street Social
‘Just because a wine has botrytis it doesn’t mean that it’s worth the money. At Yauatcha City, we are really famous for our desserts and still it’s a lot of work to train the staff and get people to buy into it. But if people are in a hurry, it can be a good thing to sell instead of dessert. People will still leave happy.’ Kelvin McCabe, Yauatcha
‘You can always find a sweet moment at the end of the meal. If you put them on a trolley and match them by the glass, it’s easy. And because it’s the last wine, people care less about the price.’ Andrea Cotichella, Wernher Restaurant at Luton Hoo Hotel Golf & Spa
‘Making a sweet wine sweet is not that difficult, but making it palatable and well balanced, that’s not so easy.’ Jade Koch, team leader
‘The ice wines were verging on being a little bit too rich. They had good acidity but I’d struggle to have a second glass of any of the wines.’ Olivier Marie, team leader
FOOTNOTE: This section includes botrytis and non-botrytis wines, ice wine and red sweet wines, but nothing fortified. While prices shown on these pages relate to the size of bottle on sale, for judging purposes, prices were given for the 75cl equivalent volume.