A Couple of Great Piedmont Dessert Wines

Years ago, sweet wines had a bad rap. Cheap sweet wines had few virtues other than being easy to drink. Mass produced, low quality sugary wines caused many a hangover and killed the market for Sauternes and other high quality dessert wines. It became fashionable to say that one disliked sweet wines while drinking white zinfandel and other supposedly dry wines that still contained residual sugar. People wouldn’t even try a wine that was billed as sweet. Fortunately, times have changed and great sweet wines are becoming more accepted and more available. This post covers a couple of dessert wines that will convert connoisseurs and non-wine drinkers alike. These Italian wines are light and versatile and will immensely add to any holiday celebration.

Both of these wines are from the Piedmont section of Italy, an area best known as the home of Barolo. But this region also makes a number of very interesting and flavorful dessert wines. The two wines reviewed here are frizzante, which means lightly sparkling. Not like champagne, but just enough bubbles to add interest and elegance. They are also low alcohol, coming in at only 4-6% rather than the 13% to 16% range of most table wines. These attributes make these wines very welcome as the closure for a heavier holiday meal. The only downside is that they will take a little searching to find. These wines are not meant for aging, so go with the currently available vintages.

Let’s start with the most obscure first. Brachetto D'Acqui is a light, sweet red wine. Don’t let the red part throw you, the wine is very refreshing and the color adds only to its appeal. Brachetto D’Acqui has a wonderful bouquet of rose petals and raspberries. It is lightly sweet and acidic enough to ensure that the sweetness isn’t at all cloying. It tastes strongly of raspberries, strawberries and other red fruits. These characteristics make this wine highly versatile and even allow it to match with chocolate. Brachetto D’Acqui is one of the few wines that not only goes well with chocolate, but is actually synergistic, bringing out the best in both. You can find good bottles of Brachetto D’Acqui for less than $20. Some good choices include:
• Marenco Pineto
• Alasia
• Viticoltori Dell' Acquese

Moscato d’Asti is a beautiful golden wine made from Muscat grapes. These grapes produce fragrant wines with highly floral bouquets that have notes of peach, apricot, pear and even orange. These flavors repeat in the mouth and the top examples of this wine have surprising complexity and depth of flavor. While cheap versions of Muscat-based wines can be found, a few extra dollars buys considerably more nuance and pleasure. My current favorite is Coppo’s Moscato d'Asti Moncalvina. It is a single vineyard wine of tremendous quality. I was blown away the first time I tried it. If you can find it (or one of its relatives), you’ll be blown away too. Highly recommended! The price is reasonable, this wine can be found for $20 or so, and other good examples can be found in the $12 to $20 range.