My interest in them has stayed fairly steady - which is modest. I always like them but almost always just reach for something else. My strong growing interest in Kabinett/Spätlese has something to do with it, for sure. Those satisfy my cravings for sweetish wine experiences more often. Still I open truly sweet ‘dessert’ wines more than you - maybe a half dozen a year.
But I never lost my mind buying them, instead I just buy about what I need - there is ample supply in the market. I wish I did that with other kinds of wine more!
In terms of your ‘problem’ it seems the solution is easy enough - sell them! There is a market, especially if you have the better known names. Just think about how much this would further your cellar reduction efforts.
Saw this after I posted. I’m not sure that there’s very little point. You say you have hundreds of bottles. Send the entire list to K&L or Winebid - you might be surprised. Certainly it depends on what you have, but there seems to be a steady flow of Sauternes and Rieslings from good vintages in those auctions. 200 times $20 is $4000 - maybe you could convert your never to be consumed stickies into a (future) vacation or a bottle or two of La Tâche .
I open 1 or 2 a year, but fortunately never got tempted to acquire very many of them. For those overloaded, I don’t get the impression they hold their resale value very well, alas - but sacrificing a bottle or two of Sauternes now and then to poach a lobster in is a nice treat.
Never drink them at home, as my wife detests sweet wines and I can’t do even a 375 by myself.
But I still enjoy a nice Sauternes with a foie gras course when dining out, and as some folks have pointed out, they can be delicious with cheese. Most of my stuff in the cellar is from the '86-'90 period, and as Alan mentioned, it seemingly lasts forever, so we are slowly working through inventory.
Funny, Auslesen have always been in this no man’s land for me of too sweet to go with Thai or Vietnamese food, but not sweet enough to be dessert. So I’ve never really bought much. Go figure.
Edited to add that I have had a number of wonderful aged auslesen with savory dishes that have a sweet component. I just haven’t really accumulated them.
I also want to add that I only got really into wine about a year and a half ago, so although I love dessert wine now (and all Rieslings), I wonder if that’ll change, similar to what many of you are describing. I’m kind of doubting it, since I’m in my 30s and still enjoy candy, I like to use brown sugar in some of my [meat] rubs, have honey on cheese, etc. (and my wife and I LOVE cheese), we we’ll see.
If anyone in LA area is looking to dump some Eiswein, BA, TBA, or even GKA Riesling, let me know!
Sarah, I own no dessert wines and I know some really like the wines but for those of us (like me) who really don’t enjoy sugar or things sweet, the wines just don’t work for me. When they get served at events, I just pass on them.
Wet Rock, sorry about you having to drink that 1/2 bottle and with bleu cheese no less.
Fine Port and Madeira have given me the most extraordinary tasting experiences of my life. At their best these are infinitely complex wines in which one is not consciously aware of sweetness, but rather of a harmonization of countless different elements. It’s a completely different experience from a plain sweet wine - including the entry levels themselves of Port and Madeira. However, I’ve only had these great wines at tastings. I would have never had them if I had had to buy them, and I agree that it can be tricky to make room for them at the dinner table.
I think its a good point raised on tastes changing. Mine have. I’ve moved away for overly sweet things, especially desserts. I gravitate more towards tart and acidic. Love me some Sorbet. And there’s always room for cheese.
I think I started out buying them on some naive and OCD concept of a balanced cellar. I had space to fill; why not fill it like a super market. Something for any time. I can walk through the aisles picking what I like to drink. I care less about that now. Time, tastes, knowing I can’t drink it all. Its all changed.
I do still think they have a place, and a time. Just not often for me hence they sit, and sit. I’ve tried lately to see if I can incorporate them in to my drinking habits; maybe out of guilt of neglect. Amusingly, its not with dessert. I find maybe as a parting shot after a single malt kinda hits home. Right before that jug of water and bed after kicking people out.
Even for me, Riesling fanatic, finding a place for the truly sweet wines (GKA, BA, TBA, Eiswein) is difficult. Most of them end up being poured as a finishing wine at a tasting, and then I remember how good they are!
Laura and I try to open one during the mid-afternoon while we watch a football game every now and then. I used to serve them as a part of the cheese course when we were hosting geeky dinner parties. Doesn’t happen much anymore.
Thankfully most top quality sweet wines are virtually immortal.
I like sweet wines but do rarely drink the heavier ones, although light low alcohol Moscato is something we end up drinking very quickly when I have bottles around the house.
I have never bought the wines to cellar yet as my impression is they are always on the market at cheap prices, even older vintages. When I want a few they are always for sale.
I consider my sweet/dessert consumption to be relatively high… I probably open ~30-35 half or full bottles of sauternes per year. I find that the young ones last in the fridge for a week (and often improve over that time), and I’m rarely disappointed when I open one. I never pair them with dessert unless I bring it to a tasting/dinner, and at home I’m almost always pairing with nuts/cheese or savory courses especially roast chicken. Seafood works well too. Really anything but a steak.
The Chateau Coutet website has some lovely recipes to pair with sauternes, if you need ideas.
My problem is not my rate of consumption, it is my rate of purchasing. These are such good values and I’ve loved them so much that I now have hundreds of bottles, and even I don’t need that much. I’ve successfully reduced my purchases to almost zero over the past 1-2 years and need to drink at my normal rate for 4-5 years before it’s a balanced portion of my cellar again…
I have maybe a case or two of Sauternes and have been stuck at that for a long time because I never open them except at Thanksgiving to match with the pies. But I have been getting more into semi-sweet Loire Vouvray, like Huet. They are less viscous than Sauternes, with more acidic lift, and in my experience make a great match with spicy Indian or Thai food. Kind of along the same principle as Riesling. They are very well priced for the quality IME.
I’ve never bought that much quantity of desert wines, but do like them when the need arises.
I’m not sure where you live, but opening a Port when the weather has been sub-zero Fahrenheit just seems like the most civilized thing you can do. The good thing about desert wines is that many tend to last longer than their drier cousins, so they can be open for a week or so before noticeably going bad, and Madeira far longer than that. The best pairing for many is cheese imo.
BTW, I was not talking about Madeira or sherry here, or port, though I don’t care for it particularly.
I love great Madeira and, though I don’t open it that often either, never feel I have too much. Of course, I also have much less! But even there I prefer the drier styles like Sercial, Verdelho, Terrantez.
Just to echo what Sarah is saying, fortified wines are a separate category for me. I do open a few of those per year. Usually in the winter. I will sip a bottle from the fridge over the course of a month. Give or take depending on the specific kind of wine. Madeiras, ruby Ports, tawny Ports, sweeter Sherries.
Sometimes with desert but not with anything too sweet because I find the combination cloying. This also depends on the wine. I recently bought some Framingham Noble Riesling from Marlborough, New Zealand which had a lovely citrus and acid quality on top of an underlying creamy sweetness which combined well with desert but I prefer a classic Sauternes such as Rieussec with blue cheese either after a meal or as a snack while watching television.
I reckon I might have the opposite problem, Sarah. The collection is pretty small, maybe approaching 1,200 bottles, but I’ve not a single case of Sauternes and, other than some sweeter Riesling and a case of Huet 1ere Trie (probably oxidised) no dessert wine at all.
I am a fan of sweet wine, especially with age, so the plan is to back full with a case or two. Despite loving the wines, they will unlikely be drunk very quickly, but I would like to plug that gap in the cellar.
One of my wines of the year to date was Yquem 1959, out-shining Petrus 82 at the same dinner, sadly that will not be the case I buy!
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