“Sweet,” usually it’s a compliment, unless it’s delivered by a date who’s just about to explain that, despite you being “a really nice person,” he or she is not sufficiently attracted to invite you up for an epilogue. And yet, when it comes to wine, label something “sweet” and people suddenly seem to lose their thirst.
That’s a shame, for several reasons. One is that an awful lot of the most popular wines in this country are ... well, they’re not dry, though their producers don’t exactly go out of their way to tell you this. “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the cabernet go down,” as a drunken Julie Andrews once sang. The jokes just write themselves, don’t they?
Another is that great sweet wines are severely underrated. One of the best is Maculan Torcolato, from the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. It tastes like honey made from succulent stone fruit and baking spices, and its concentrated intensity lingers for what seems like hours. It’s one of the finest ways to end an evening, whether or not there’s someone else in the room.
