sweet wine and winemaker questions

I know nothing of sweet wines. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and this includes wines. I prefer dry. Exceptionally dry, in fact.

However, I am spending New Year's Eve with someone who *does* like sweet wine. I am probably going to be doing a trial run of my Fredonia wine which is about ready to be bottled. But it is incredibly dry. It's not tannic, thankfully, but it is pretty dry. - Too dry for my companion's taste.

What would you recommend for a good sweet wine, that isn't jammy or syrupy, affordable, drinkable, and preferably red?

Also! A question of the wine maker variety.

I've added the metabisulfite to my wine already, but I am not sure if it's entirely as sweet as I am going to end up wanting. I might end up trying to go for an off-dry. I don't really know yet because I only had a sip the other day since I was in a rush to get to work. What is the best way to add sugar once fermentation is done?

Hi Liz.

I would recommend Mavrodaphne, a sweet red wine originating from the Achaia region in Peloponnese, Greece. You can usually pick up a bottle for a good price.

Hi Liz,
For a sweet red Port is probably your best choice. However, if you can make a trip to Chataqua County, get your hands on some Johnson Estate Delaware Ice Wine - available only at the winery (it's white).
Sweetening a wine before bottling is a bit tricky. First of all, the wine must be very clear and the SO2 level (from adding the potassium metabisulfite) should be higher than for a dry wine. Unless you have access to a sterile filtration system, you will need to add potassium sorbate to prevent any lingering yeast cells from re-starting fermentation once the sugar is added. Remove about a half gallon of the wine. Pour about a quart of the wine into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar to the bowl and stir until it is all dissolved. 1 cup of sugar in 5 gallons of wine will result in about 1% sugar. This is just above the perceptible sweetness level. About 1.5% is a good target for an off-dry, but that can depend on the acidity of the wine. Add the potassium sorbate and another dose of potassium metabisulfite to the bowl and stir it in. Stir this back into your batch of wine and top up the container with the remaining wine you removed. Then bottle the wine. If you sweeten using cane sugar (sucrose) you should wait about 2 months after bottling before drinking it. The reason for this is that sucrose is a di-saccharide (double sugar ring) and the acid in the wine will break the sucrose into two mono-saccharides (single sugars), fructose and glucose. These taste a bit different than the sucrose and will also give the wine a different mouthfeel. Also, while this transformation is taking place, the wine will exhibit an "off" flavor until it is complete.

What Howie said. It's also important not to forget the final pre-bottling dose of SO2 when using sorbate. Fail to do so and your wine will, sooner or later, taste like geraniums.

Good luck with your wine Liz, it’s a great hobby.

Salute