Another group of unique and hedonistic holiday wines are dessert wines…they are a perfect ending to a long meal and often can match well with certain holiday dishes, such as foie or cheese.  Dessert wines are under-appreciated and often misunderstood…even by wine lovers.  The dessert wines I serve to my classes often cause surprise…many clients have never tried high quality sweet wines and they are often astonished by what they taste. There are so many types…but today I would like to recommend three:

Yes, wine storage conditions matter even for port!  Following is a very sad story of how critical this issue is. 

Recently we got a chance to try two 1980 vintage ports together that had been stored in very different conditions.  The difference between the two wines was a revelation to me!

We had been given a wonderful vintage port for our wedding and had been saving it (in our wine cellar) for a few months.   The Quinta do Noval Nacional 1980 had been bought at a local store, as tore that is known for excellent prices but not necessarily the best storage conditions. 

My husband’s family loves a good dessert wine…so we break one out as often as possible. Often they are not Spanish ones, as the Spanish dessert wine scene can be limiting, but today we had one of our favourite sweet sherries. Pedro Ximenez (PX) is the typical sweet sherry that you see over here. PX is the sweetening grape made after drying the grapes in the sun. The monovarietal wine is thick, syrupy and intensely sweet, especially after long aging. It can be quirt nice but many of them are very cloying. One sip suffices…or it can be used over vanilla ice cream.