I have never really enjoyed wine for a couple of reasons. 1) It almost immediately gives me a headache and 2) It's just not sweet enough for me.

If I could find a sweet, preferably red, wine that didn't give me a headache, I'd be thrilled. And please let me clarify - I don't know what the wine community considers to be sweet, but I have a sweet tooth that never seems to be satisfied. If I could drink cheesecake in wine form, I'd be in heaven. It seems like the wines that most people consider to be "sweet" taste bitter to me. I purchased a late harvest Riesling yesterday and am tempted to pour it down the drain as I sit here now, tasting it and making a face as I do so.

My goal is to find something that I can enjoy while my friends enjoy their favorite glasses of wine.

Many thanks in advance.

You must be drinking the wrong reds. If your resources are limited venture into the Austrailian Shiraz and blends Lindemans Clancy for under $20 or the D'Armengen's (sic)Laughing Magpie should cure your problem. Good sweet red wine is an oxymoron. Try Mogan-David Concord and you'll be rid of that notion.

If you insist on sweet wine then German Riesling Splatlese (sweet), Auslese (very sweet), California Muscat, Caymus Conundrum would fill your needs. Any sweeter than these and you are into dessert wines.

quote:

If I could drink cheesecake in wine form, I'd be in heaven.

I'm guessing dessert wines are exactly what jet is looking for. Try a 10yo Tawny Port and see if that floats your boat. And to really know whether Rieslings are for you or not, we'd have to know which one you found revolting - like all wines there are good and bad examples of them. Sauternes is another white sticky that you might like.

The headaches, though, are another matter entirely. You can use the search function to find many discussions on this topic.

I think that SD-Wineaux is right on track for your stated tastes, but I thought I'd throw out a couple suggestions of red 'table wine' that I thought would satisfy my friends that have sweet tooths as well. Rosenblum Cellars makes some good 'new world fruit-bombs' that you might want to try, if you want to venture away from the 'desert wines' that SDW was suggesting. Rosenblum California Zinfandel Vintners Cuvee XXVIII and Rosenblum San Francisco Bay Petite Sirah Heritage Clones are some examples, both of which should be readily available and under $20. They are fairly tannic on the finish, but they present plenty of sweet berry flavors on the attack and juicy mouthfeel.

Thank you all for your help! I am going to try all of your suggestions - probably starting with the Tawny Port that SD noted. Now off to search for the headache remedies...

Thanks again!

Jet:

You might enjoy one of the following sweet reds:

1) Port: Late Bottle Vintage 1999 Croft
2) Les Banyuls
3) Les Rivesaltes

Thanks! I will add them to my new list that has been created from this posting.

I don't know if anyone out there can tell me how to tell the histamine levels in specific wines...but if so, please do! I did search this site's forums regarding the headache issue, and it seems that histamine levels in some wines might be the cause of my headaches. I'm just not sure how to tell (other than tasting and therefore getting headaches...or not) what histamine levels various wines have. Any suggestions?


Thanks!!!

I don't know of any source that lists histamine levels for wines, but one way to see whether histamines are your issue or not is to grab a wine that has given you a headache in the past and drink it after taking an anti-hitamine 1 hour prior. You risk a headache, but at least you'll know.

I am a fan of the sweeter wines as well! Around Christmas time I had an excellent Gewurztraminer (say that 10 times fast) from Fetzer. It's a German wine, and about.com says this: Gewurztraminer can be made in dry or sweet varieties and are generally best if enjoyed sooner rather than later post-bottling. Flavors qualities include: honey, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, apricot, pear, and rose.

Bottom line, it was sweet and good!

depending where you live, one company puts out two Italian red that are classified as sweet.....

Cantina Gabreile(or Gaberile Cantina, can't remember) Vino Red is a slightly frizanta(sp?) red low in alcohol that my wife finds enjoyable as a non-red drinker........

The other red she has had is by the same maker in a fiasco bottle and is labeled semi-sweet.

They both don't suck...........

Go big... Chateau D'Yquem Sauternes. Like a playground of sugar and fruit in your tummy.

I saw a wine review blurb by RPM that went...'it's like apple pie in a glass'... and thought no thanks!...i'll see if i can find again...might be right up your alley...

meanwhile dessert wines are prob your thing...
Port,sauternes,late harvest wines, etc...I just bought a spanish monastrell dulce that is pretty sweet/good...
happy hunting...

quote:

Originally posted by Charles Andrews:

If you insist on sweet wine then German Riesling Splatlese (sweet), Auslese (very sweet), California Muscat, Caymus Conundrum would fill your needs. Any sweeter than these and you are into dessert wines.

Charles, do you really consider Caymus Conundrum a sweet wine? My experience (and I drink it as one of my regular whites) is that it is not sweet at all. It does have very pleasant tastes of melon, pear, vanilla but also there are very noticabvle citris and notes of floral. Not knowning the exact blend Caymus makes it from Sav. Blank, Chardonnay, Viognier, Semillon and Muscat Canelli.

It is just my opinion but I would not receommend this to someone who's wants a sweet wine - I like it and I drink very few sweet other than late harvest viognier or other quality desert wines when appropriate.

quote:

Originally posted by jetaime2:
I have never really enjoyed wine for a couple of reasons. 1) It almost immediately gives me a headache and 2) It's just not sweet enough for me.

If I could find a sweet, preferably red, wine that didn't give me a headache, I'd be thrilled. And please let me clarify - I don't know what the wine community considers to be sweet, but I have a sweet tooth that never seems to be satisfied. If I could drink cheesecake in wine form, I'd be in heaven. It seems like the wines that most people consider to be "sweet" taste bitter to me. I purchased a late harvest Riesling yesterday and am tempted to pour it down the drain as I sit here now, tasting it and making a face as I do so.

My goal is to find something that I can enjoy while my friends enjoy their favorite glasses of wine.

Many thanks in advance.

Maybe you should just stay with Coke or Pepsi.Sweet enough and won't give you headache.

Strippers always help

Oh man, some of these replies are hilarious. Okay, so I am new too, jetaime2, and I just discovered this wine over the weekend. Its called Black Opal, Australian 2005 Shiraz. You should be able to get it in any grocery store, and if that's not sweet enough for you just transition over to the desert wine section.

Not all late harvest rieslings are disgusting. At it's best it tastes like liquid sherbet. There's a reason most dessert wines are white.

Everyone's responses have been very helpful...but yours especially intrigues me. Why, exactly, are most dessert wines white?

Also...what qualifies a wine as a "dessert wine"?

I have recently found, thanks to my boyfriend, that I like Cabernets. Who would have thunk it? Any suggestions in that category?

Also...why is wine served at room temp vs chilled? The few times I've had a chilled wine (in a sangria), it tasted much better than the room temp version. Just curious...

Thanks in advance.

quote:

Originally posted by jetaime2:
Also...what qualifies a wine as a "dessert wine"?

There is an online resource dictionary I find helpful for answering basic knowledge questions I frequently have - like this one.
Generally speaking any of a wide variety of sweet wines (sometimes fortified with brandy), all of which are compatible with desserts. More specifically in the United States, dessert wine is a legal term referring to all FORTIFIED wines (whether or not sweet), which typically range from 16 to 21 percent in ALCOHOL BY VOLUME. Some of the more popular dessert wines are LATE HARVEST RIESLING, PORT, SAUTERNES, SHERRY, and AUSLESE.

It is my opinion that the term Desert Wine is more commonly used for very sweet wine with a high level of residiual sugar. The most common are Late Harvest wines which are most often made from white grapes. Again, about LATE HARVEST from the same resource:
A wine term referring to wines made from grapes picked toward the end of the harvest (usually late fall) when they are very ripe. Such grapes have a higher sugar content (minimum of 24° BRIX), particularly if they've been infected with BOTRYTIS CINEREA, a desirable fungus that shrivels the grape and thereby concentrates the sugar. ... Generally, Select Late Harvest and Special Select Late Harvest wines have a RESIDUAL SUGAR content, some ranging as high as 28 percent. Late harvest wines are noted for their rich, deep, honeyed flavors and are customarily served after the main course, often with dessert or with cheeses such as Roquefort. The most popular grapes used for these DESSERT WINES are GEWÜRZTRAMINER, RIESLING, SAUVIGNON BLANC, and SÉMILLON.

quote:

I have recently found, thanks to my boyfriend, that I like Cabernets. Who would have thunk it? Any suggestions in that category?

Also...why is wine served at room temp vs chilled? The few times I've had a chilled wine (in a sangria), it tasted much better than the room temp version. Just curious...

Thanks in advance.

Cabernet is a dry wine - i.e. almost no residual sugar as all the sugar has been converted to a alcohol. I think that you are discovering that what you like about wine is the fruit more than the sugar. I find many who tell me that they only like sweet enjoy a good "fruit forward" dry wine that is not high in tannin.

Most of those new have yet to leant to appreciate tannins as a part of the structure of good wine and they relate tannins to "dry". When they say they do not like "dry" it always goes to that "puckery" feeling from wines with strong tannin. That feeling is a feeling of the mouth being "dried up". Really good young Cabernet will start with strong tannins which will mellow with age. Do not buy those wines and drink them right away.

A good Cabernet that is not strong in tannin and has good fruit is often thought to be "sweet" because it does not "feel" dry.

Well anyway, that's how I understand it and I'm still learning every day.

There are some true experts on this forum that know way more than I do and might correct a thing or two I've said here...I can hope.

Jetaime2,

I think (based on your description of the super sweet tooth you have!) that you would find a small glass of heaven in a good desert wine, like an ice wine.

Granted, it's a different drinking experience than a true glass of wine (mainly, because being SO high in sugar you only drink a little of it), so whereas your friends are going to be holding a large glass full, you would have a small glass with just a few ounces in it. *shrugs* If that doesn't bother you, I bet the taste of a good desert wine would blow you away!

I'd recommend getting a Jackson-Triggs Vidal Icewine ($19/half bottle), or a Inniskillin Vidal ($35).

If you want something cheaper (not quite as good and complex, but still in the same arena) to try what an ice wine is like pick up a Bonny Doon "Vin de Glacier". It's $19 for the whole bottle (whole bottles in the icewine world are 375ml not 750ml like normal wine) and can be found most anywhere, and while more affordable, still does have that true ice wine flavor... whereas a lot of cheap ice wines do not.

If you don't know and are wondering, ice wine is made by picking grapes when they are fully frozen on the vine, then pressing them. The water in the grape presses out leaving only a small drop of basically concentrated nectar. That is then used to make the desert drink, ice wine.

A good ice wine can have INCREDIBLE flavors (mainly in the apricot, mango, pear, peach, nectarine, honey, etc families) and can be very complex. But the basic of it is that it almost tastes like a concentrated grape juice. It is truly mind blowing stuff!! Not sure I've EVER had a better taste in my mouth. Ice wine can get pricey (the best I ever had, and the good ones like Rieslings and Cab Francs etc, can run you $100+) but you can find some cheaper ones like the one I just mentioned.

Anyhow, may NOT be what you're looking for, but my gut tells me that you'd love the taste!

Though, then again, with the last Cab remark you made, maybe you just haven't found the 'regular' wine types that are right for you yet. That was some good advice that EagleGrafix gave you above. Maybe a real fruit-forward red would be right for you. I'd also have to think that the right Riesling (like the Spatlese) would be right up your alley. Perhaps you had a 'bad' - or in your case just dry - Riesling. *shrugs*

Anyhow, good luck, and cheers!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OTTnMIA,

I've had some Sauternes that I got for about $20 (375ml) at my local wine shop that were very sweet and pretty good.

You'd probably like a German Trockenbeerenauslese, but that could break the bank. Then again, there are millions of people who love libfraumilch (I'm not in that group).

A good place to start would be your local wine shop. A good store will be able to guide you to a wine that is right for you.

Sometimes, people who seek out very sweet wines exclusively just haven't developed their palate. When I was a kid I hated mushrooms and olives, but now I love them. Hopefully, you'll find a good, sticky sweet wine that you like and that will be a gateway to other great wines - both sticky and dry and everything in between.

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Adrian,

Okay this is the funniest string I have read in a long time. Most peoples responses are so funny.
Let me guess. "Jet" is an early 20s femme that has no business drinking wine in the first place. I'm with the french guy. Try a "Bahama-Mama" it's a sweet red that you can drink when sitting with your friends. And everyone else...catering to the inexperience. She found out through experimentation that she likes Cabernet.
I bet if exposed she would love an good aged Brunello or a piece of dark chocolate. Entice people to exercise their palates. Sweet wines just don't do that.