How Botrytris Cinerea Makes A Great Sweet Wine For Beginners

One sweet wine for beginners has a bizarre origin. One that you would not think would benefit a wine at all. It's a mold that transforms an otherwise tart, timid Semillon into a sumptuous concentration of exotic fruits, honeyed sweetness and creamy viscosity. What is the scientific name of this extraordinary fungus? Botrytris Cinerea. But it is best known as Noble Rot, or in the French translation, Pourriture Noble. As much as this fungus has been studied, the beneficial nature this mold imparts to certain wine grapes like Semillon is still not understood.

Basically, the cool clime of France around Sauternes and Barsac near the Garonne River is conducive to misty humid mornings that cause Botrytis spores to spring to life. The spores ride in on water molecules from the river and cling to the Semillon grapes. A spore will penetrate the grape's skin and feed off the ripe sugars within. This causes dehydration of the grape's water supply and as it dries up the sugar levels concentrate which preserves the fruit flavors of the grape. The following bright sunny afternoons keep the Botrytis from rapidly turning into the detrimental Grey Rot which turn the grapes into unusable mush.

As the grapes dehydrate they shrivel into raisins with a fungal covering of web-like growth. At the time of harvest grape pickers labor to pick the individually infected berries while leaving the grapes requiring longer hang time. This is why these delectable wines are so expensive, because of the intensive labor required to harvest them. What a harvest of Botrytis affected Semillon grapes amounts to is about one glass of wine per vine.

Unfortunately, as much a treat as these sweet white wines from Bordeaux are, they don't really compete with the more coveted Bordeaux reds that come from the area. Add to that the belief that if it's a bad year for the reds, the whites must not be any good either. The truth is quite the opposite; usually when the reds experience a bad year it's due to unfavorable weather conditions which prove to be very favorable to the sweet white wines of the area.

For example, the conditions in 2007 in the Sauternes and Barsac vineyards were perfect in every respect, producing exceptional quality across the board. The sweet wines exhibit pronounced perfume aromas with marked apricot, musk and honey notes indicative of the effects of Botrytis and high sugar levels. Complex textures, intense fruit flavors and viscous sweetness balance the acidity levels and make these wines great in their youth but are capable of dramatic lifespans reaching easily into the twenty to thirty year mark. If you are looking for a magnificent though somewhat pricey sweet wine for beginners, a 2007 Botrytis Semillon is the sweet wine for you.