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Vendange tardive


Vendange tardive ("VT") means "late harvest" in French. The phrase refers to a style of dessert wine where the grapes are allowed to hang on the vine until they start to dehydrate. This process, called passerillage, concentrates the sugars in the juice and changes the flavours within it. The name is sometimes written as the plural form, vendanges tardives, referring to the fact that several runs through the vineyard is often necessary to produce such wines. In others countries such as Germany or Austria the term Spätlese is used to describe wine using the same making process.

Alsace wines were the first to be described as vendange tardive but the term is now used in other regions of France. Since 1984, the term has been legally defined in Alsace and may only be applied to wines that exceed a minimum must weight and pass blind tasting by the INAO.Sélection de Grains Nobles ("SGN") is an even sweeter category, for grapes affected by noble rot. Vendange tardive is also an official wine designation in Luxembourg.

Jean Hugel first described a wine as vendange tardive after the long hot summer of 1976. He drafted rules for vendange tardive wine that were eventually accepted by the INAO on 1 March 1984, and known unofficially as Hugel's Law in recognition of Johnny's crusade.

The minimum sugar levels were increased in 2001. The criteria are :

Between 1981 and 1989, the number of producers rose from 11 to over 500.

The minimum sugar levels in the juice are a bit above those required for the German Auslese classification, but are routinely exceeded by good producers; on the other hand Alsace wines tend to be fermented more completely than those across the Rhine, reducing the amount of sugar in the final wine. Some vendange tardive wines are fairly dry, most are sweet but not cloyingly so; all are characterised by great richness. Sélection de Grains Nobles is roughly equivalent to the German Beerenauslese, with the honeyed flavours characteristic of noble rot.


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