Home - Cooking Tips - Wine for a Sweet Tooth

Many young adults, especially in the US, have grown up not being allowed to drink any wine at all. Instead, they grow up drinking soda, Hi-C, and eating chocolate and candy. Is it any wonder that when they try their first wine, they find it incredibly sour or tart?

Here are some good wines for new wine drinkers to taste, to help their palates adjust to the different sorts of flavors wines have.

White zinfandel
White Zin is the 'punch' of the wine world. Light, fruity, easy to drink, gentle flavor. This is a blush wine made from the red Zinfandel grape. They only let the red skins affect the wine for a short time before removing them - so instead of making the regular, rich, hearty Zinfandel wine, they make a 'light' pink version instead. Great with just about any meal, and perfect for summer picnics.

A good White Zin to try is Beringer, or Sutter Home.

Port
Port is a fortified dessert wine which is thick and sweet. Fortified means that brandy was added to the base wine to give it a higher alcohol content. It is rich and perfect for sipping while relaxing by a roaring fire, watching TV or reading a book. Port goes wonderfully with chocolate! It's also good with cheese.

Good ports to start with would be Harvey's Whiskers Blake, Benjamin, or Otima.

Asti Spumanti
Looking for a sparkling wine? Some people find real Champagnes to be too dry (not-sweet) for their tastes. Instead, try an Asti Spumanti from Italy. The Italian sparkling wines are much sweeter than their French counterparts, and go perfectly with strawberries. A great toasting sparkler for sweet toothed lovers.

Martini & Rossi makes the classic Asti Spumanti

If you are looking for red wines for health reasons, there really are not many red wines that are actually "sweet". However, I have a page on Sweet Red Wines to help you get started with the most tolerable of the group!