Sweet wines are a delicious and fitting end to a good meal. There are numerous kinds of dessert wines. This page gathers in one place the reviews for dessert wines from around the world. The page is broken up into sections that group dessert wines by style, so you can find the dessert wine you want quickly.

Port Style

Real Port is from Portugal and is a fortified wine produced in the Douro region. You can learn more about Port on the page on wines of the Iberian peninsula. Port-style wines are sweet, red, and heavily fortified, with varying levels of wood.

Fortified Cockburn, Special Reserve Porto, NV (Porto, Portugal)
Sweet grape and raisin flavor, exceptionally smooth. Heady and strong, with a raisin and date finish.
$15 / bottle

Fortified Taylor Fladgate, 20 Year Tawny Porto NV (Porto, Portugal)
Dense raisin, date, and nuts over moderate wood. Smooth.
$50 / bottle

Fortified Warre, 20 Year Tawny Porto NV (Porto, Portugal)
Off-dry, rich raisins and dates over intense wood. Heady.
$45 / bottle

Fortified Warre's, "Warrior" Special Reserve Porto, NV (Porto, Portugal)
Raisin and plum, with prune and wood incense notes.
$16 / bottle

Fortified Benjamin, Australian Tawny Port NV (Mildara, Australia)
Sweet and heady, with nuts and moderate wood. Lighter in flavor and sweeter than many Portuguese tawnies.
$10 / bottle

Sherry style

Real Sherry comes from Jerez in Spain and is an unusual oxidized fortified white wine, with a white raisin flavor and varying amounts of nuts. You can learn more about Sherry on the page on wines of the Iberian peninsula. Sherry-style wines are made all over the world.

Fortified Gonzalez Byass "Nectar" Pedro Ximinez Sweet Sherry (DO Jerez Manzanilla)
Dark and syrupy sweet raisins with toasty nuts and faint mushrooms. Powerful and sweet, very rich, long finish.
? / bottle

Fortified Wisdom and Warter, Extra Amontillado Sherry (Jerez, Spain)
Strong nutty flavor, and a primary flavor best described as shitake mushroom. Long and lingering. Very strong and intense.
$11 / bottle

Fortified Domecq, Medium Dry Amontillado Sherry (Jerez, Spain)
Off-dry, with a deep toasty wood flavor and roasted almonds.
$13 / bottle

Fortified Lustau, "Capataz Andres" Solera Reserve Cream Sherry (Jerez, Spain)
Rich nutty flavor, with strong wood undertones. Thick, syrupy texture, very intense and alcoholic.
$14 / bottle

Muscat dessert wines

Intense dessert wines can be made from the moscato (muscat) grape, sometimes fortified. These wines are sweet and taste like more intense versions of the basic moscato. In Spain, these are usually moscatel; in France, much of it is Muscat de Beaumes de Venise; worldwide, it is usually sold as Muscat or Moscato.

White Vicente Gandia "Fusta Nova" Moscatel 2004 (DO Valencia, Spain)
Sweet nectar, white raisins, and almonds. Heady and rich.
$13 / 500ml

White Oro Penedes Hill, Muscat-Xarel.lo 2004 (DO Penedes, Spain)
Blend of Parellada/Macabeo/Xarel.lo/Muscat 20/20/25/35. Riesling-like floral fruit, light tropical hints, slightly sweet, very short and watery finish.
$8 / bottle

White Bodegas Santo Cristo, Moscatel Ainzon NV (DO Campo de Borja, Spain)
Dense, sweet peach, melons, honey, and nectar. Thick texture, bright on the tongue, heady.
$14 / bottle

White Domaine de la Pigeade, Muscat de Beaumes de Venise 1999 (AOC Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, France)
Sweet melon and peach juice with a fair tang. Not at all cloying.
$13 / 375ml

White Domaine de Coyeux, Muscat de Beaumes de Venise 2001 (AOC Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, France)
Sweet and heady melon, nectar, and spicy honey.
$14 / 375ml

White Llano Estacado, "Vintner's Selection" Muscat Canelli NV (USA)
Very sweet, with bold honeysuckle and melon, with a touch of spice. Round and plump. Sugary finish.
$9 / bottle

White Texas Hills Vineyard, "Newsom Vineyard" Orange Moscato 2003 (Texas)
Sweet peaches and apricot, mild citrus, honey, high acid. Tasty.
$16 / 500ml

White Noah, Muscat 2005 (Judean Hills, Israel)
Lively, spicy attack with dense and heady floral and grape essences and loads of honeysuckle and botrytis flavor. High alcohol. Heavy and sweet finish. Tastes more like Sauternes than Moscatel, but slightly lighter.
$16 / 500ml

Ice Wine and German-style Dessert Wine

This category includes dessert-style rieslings (beerenauslese and up) and ice wines, and their equivalents around the world.

White Valkenberg, Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese 1994 (QmP Pfalz, Germany)
Very dense, like liquid raisins. Syrupy nectar flavors with moderate earthy tones and light mineral scent.
$34 / 375ml

White BH, Silvaner Eiswein 1997 (QmP Pfalz, Germany)
Sweet nectar with spicy honey, melon, and light floral tones. Rich.
$40 / 375ml

White Weingut Heinfried Dexheimer, Alzeyer Rotenfels, Siegerrebe Beerenauslese 1999 (QmP Rheinhessen, Germany)
Very rich and intense and heady. Thick nectar flavor and extremely zesty floral spice, like drinking sweet wildflowers. Woody and earthy finish. Very potent.
$15 / 375ml

White Hermann J. Wiemer, Select Late Harvest Riesling 2003 (Finger Lakes, New York)
Sweet and rich, with flavors of nectar, honey, apples, and flowers. Slight tartness and headiness in the finish.
$35 / 500ml

White Hermann J. Wiemer, Bunch Select Late Harvest Riesling 2006 (Finger Lakes, New York)
Strong and rich, bursting with forward peach, apricot, honey, nectar, and flowers. Extremely concentrated but deceptively pale in color. Extremely sweet with a sticky sugary finish.
$50 / 500ml

White Jackson-Triggs, "Proprietor's Reserve" Vidal Icewine 2002 (VQA Niagara Peninsula, Canada)
Dense (but not overwhelming) sweetness with phenol, apricot, and nectarine notes. Hints of tropical citrus or pineapple in an ever-shifting fruit blend.
$19 / 187ml

Sauternes style

Sauternes is a sweet white wine that has been attacked by the botrytis fungus, which removes much of the water in the grape, leading to richer and more concentrated flavors. Although the French Sauternes is the best known example of this style, botrytis-infected dessert wines are made worldwide.

White Maison Nicolas, "Reserve" Sauternes 1999 (AOC Sauternes, France)
Light and sweet, with citrus and floral scents.
$11 / 375ml

White Chateau Bastor-Lamontagne, Sauternes 1997 (AOC Sauternes, France)
Rich and heady honey and ambrosia flavor, with flowers and a moderate mineral backing. Faint nut and wood flavors.
$30 / 375ml

White Chateau Haut-Mayne, Sauternes 1998 (AOC Sauternes, France)
Deep mineral and melon flavor with light grassy tones. Very sweet. Slightly spicy. Intense and rich.
$19 / 375ml

White Chateau du Mont, "Premieres Tries" Saint-Croix-du-Mont 1998 (AOC Saint-Croix-du-Mont, France)
Extremely bold and powerful grapefruit flavor, with lots of honey. Oily/syrupy texture, like liqueor. No discernable grape flavor. Botrytisized flavor in the extreme.
$12 / bottle

White Peter Lehmann, "The Barossa" Botrytis Semillon 1999 (Barossa Valley, Australia)
Heady and overblown, with biting sweetness and petrol flavors.
$13 / 375ml