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Simply Sweet Saturday: Dessert Wines

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Tonight I hosted another Wine & Dine event for my cooking group. This month we focused on Dessert Wines. Dessert wines (or pudding wines) are sweet wines typically served with dessert, such as Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú. Despite the name, they are often best appreciated alone, or with fruit or bakery sweets.

There is no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal, as opposed to the white fortified wines (fino and amontillado sherry) drunk before the meal, and the red fortified wines (port and madeira) drunk after it. Thus most fortified wines are regarded as distinct from dessert wines, but some of the less strong fortified white wines, such as Pedro Ximenez sherry and Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, are regarded as honorary dessert wines. In the United States, by contrast, a dessert wine is legally defined as any wine over 14% alcohol by volume, which includes all fortified wines – and is taxed more highly as a result.

For tonight I offered the following dessert wines:

10 year Tawny Port:
Taylor Fladgate 10 Year Old Tawnypicture066-6964836

Ruby Port:
Jonesy Portpicture067-8401078

Sauternes:
2001 Chateau Rabaud Promis, Sauternespicture069-3420960

Ice Wine:
2004 Jackson Triggs Vidal Ice Winepicture071-4321862

Sherry:
1927 Alvear Pedro Ximenez (PX) Solerapicture068-7652098

Late Harvest Riesling:
2004 Kiona Red Mountain Late Harvest White Rieslingpicture070-1097964

To go with the wines I’ve chosen, here is the dinner I prepared:

Port glazed lamb chops & chicken thighs
picture039-7073210

picture036-9446413

Sweet potato croquettes

picture041-1003708

Fig Trio:
Grilled Prosciutto Wrapped Figspicture037-7559635


Mint & Feta Stuffed Figspicture034-5094749
Nutella Topped Figspicture040-5894311

Spring salad with blue cheese, cranberries,
pears, walnuts & cherry balsamic dressing

picture052-9792177

Caramelized onion tartletts
picture035-1390654

Portabello mushrooms stuffed w/leeks & goat cheese

picture042-5998188

Minibaked cheese souffles – packaged/preparedpicture038-5867258

Cheese & cracker boards
Roquefort, Blue cheese, Boursin, Brie,
Chevre (goat cheese), Marscapone, Provolone , Swiss

picture053-9329934picture055-2751340picture051-7276608


Fruit platter
Nectarines, Grapes, Apples, Pears, Dried Apricots

picture056-4662469

Flourless chocolate cake (packaged/purchased)
with Raspberry Coulis (made):

picture049-4135020picture050-2332059

1/2 bag frozen raspberries

1 cup water
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice

In a small pot, combine all the ingredients and boil.
Stir occassionally and cook to reduce until a thick syrup.
Strain the mixture to rid of seeds. You may have to strain it a few times.
I served this as a sauce on the bottom of the serving plate for the flourless chocolate cake to sit on.

Carrot cake cheesecake (packaged/purchased)

picture047-1416792


Chocolate covered pretzels (packaged/purchased)

picture048-4390885


Mixed nuts (packaged/purchased)
picture043-4107215

Cashew marizpan (packaged/purchased)
picture044-6156924

Mini Almond Biscotti (packaged/purchased)

picture045-8294669

Fresh Lemon/Lime & Cucumber Water

Grape & Peach Spritzer (recipe follows)

picture054-19659651 frozen cylinder of grape & peach punch concentrate

1- 2 liter bottle of lemon lime soda
1 liter of water
1 to fill

Combine above ingredients in a one gallon pitcher; stir.

The final table setting shots:picture058-4875537picture059-5787292picture060-1350073picture057-9598048
Desserts Table Shots:picture061-2834090picture062-5836626

Here are candids from the event:
(It was a full house with over 20 people attending! I
was pretty busy entertaining & playing hostess
that I was unable to get too many pictures this time around…)picture063-3469007picture065-6848310

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