Sweet/Dessert/Fortified

Not every sweet wine is a dessert wine, and not every fortified wine is sweet.

Some wines are sweet because fermentation was stopped early, leaving natural grape sugar in the wine. Dessert wines are made for richness and concentration, often from late-harvest, botrytized, or dried grapes. Fortified wines are strengthened with grape spirit or brandy — and can range from bone-dry Sherry to rich, sweet Port.

At Wine Stop, we are interested in sweetness when it has a reason: grape, place, tradition, process, balance, and pleasure.

Not sweetness used as makeup — the kind created by adding rectified concentrated grape must to make an ordinary wine taste sweet.

Every wine is shown in the glass we recommend for it. Hover over the image on desktop or tap the image on mobile to view the glass.