In Defense of Brix

A phenomena whose demise would not hurt our feelings: The equation of dryness with sophistication.
To use an altogether obvious analogy with food is like stopping at the main course at dinner. Sweets indeed may be a guilty pleasure, but to deny the power that sugar has on a palate is plain counter-evolutionary! OF course part of the bad rap is deserved - brought on the industry itself by cloying, one dimensional, uninspired wines concocted to please the most pedestrian of tastes. As with a great dessert the question is not merely of sweetness, but the form, shape and nuance it takes on with artful handling. Being handed a bowl-full of sugar is in no way a 'dessert' just as getting a bottle-full should satisfy any taste save that of a hummingbird.

The breadth of styles is as varied as with wines of the dry persuasion. However 'getting what you pay for' is more of a factor here. The fact that great sweet wines are a rare gift of nature, bestowed sparingly, and only in the most perfect of conditions, is at odds with an industry and buying public increasingly reluctant to leave anything up to anything as unreliable as 'nature'. Be wary of anything cheap or copious. The role call of great dessert wines is impressive, in no particular order: Banyuls, Sauternes, Cerons, Port, Madeira, Pedro Ximenez, Coteaux du Layon, Muscat de Baumes de Venise, Moscato, Tokaji (say it with me) Trockenbeerenauslese, Selection des Grains Nobles, Vins du Liquorreux, Eiswein. To name but the most prominent. Roughly they can be divided into two categories. Fortifieds, which either during (usually) or after(rarely)fermentation are, uh, fortified with some sort of neutral spirit; thus stopping the yeast dead in its tracks and leaving a healthy dose of sugar still hanging out. Port is the most well known example. The combination of residual sugar (RS as we like to call it) and bonus alcohol is what allows these wines to age almost indefinitely, in degrees from utter stability in the case of a Ruby to slow, graceful maturation in a vintage, which is one of the few wines which it is truly criminal to consume before its time, conservatively after 15 years. Densely ripe and profound in sweetness and in depth, these are and should be, a rare treat, vintages being declared on average once a decade (there were fourteen between 1900 and 2000). The other category and by far (to me) the most fascinating and mysterious are the late-harvest, aka rotten, category. Made possible by glorious organism known officially as Botrytis Cinerea, or 'pourriture noble'- noble rot. A finicky fungus whose food is the flesh of fortunate grapes in very special spots on the globe. To be fair, Hungary's Tokaji should be mentioned first, as it was allegedly discovered here, although Bordeaux's Sauternes is arguably the benchmark product of this affliction. By eating microscopic holes in the grape skin it allows for the escape of water but not just, culminating (ideally) in fabulously rich concentrated juice with endless layers of flavor and like its fortified kin, near immortality in the cellar. The most famous Sauternes of all is Chateau D'Yquem whose reputation has been established long enough that in 1855 when the classification of Bordeaux was created, they were given a special ranking, literally in a class by themselves, above 1st Growth - Great 1st Growth, and at a few hundred dollars a half bottle it damn well should be! However to learn of the lengths taken at the property to protect this status makes the price seem like a bargain, almost. A team of experienced pickers is kept on hand who well after all the dry wine harvest has been safely brought in elsewhere in the region, sets about the mind-numbingly minute process of harvesting the berries - one by perfectly rotten one. This can take up to several weeks, as no grape that has not been graced with total fuzzy coverage will be picked. Nails are surely bitten all the way along as any number of factors, most often birds and hail, can spoil the vintage- which at a house like D'Yquem means no wine will be made year. Bummer. The lesser chateaux produce perfectly respectable wines at fractional prices, with arguably ambiguous variation in quality. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try it if you have the chance. Brix by the way is the scale upon which sugar in grapes (or beer for that matter) is measured. Cheers and Sip Wisely!