Wine columnist RICHARD CALVER goes looking for the secrets of sweetness. 

MY parents played the 1963 Searchers’ song endlessly:

Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey,
Your first sweet kiss thrilled me so.
Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey,
I’ll never ever let you go.

In modern times these lyrics somewhat resonate with over-protective paternalistic control (PC forever!) but I recall that opening verse because my childhood adoration of sweet treats is a cloudy, distant memory.

And as I get older, those memories contrast to the flavours I prefer: dry, smoky, black fruit driven. But I don’t dislike sweet wine. Far from it. A good Noble One (it’s a botrytis-affected semillon) with a creamy dessert is a match that never disappoints. 

A dear friend was invited to dinner and dislikes the complex, citrus-fired local rieslings that I normally serve with my almost perfected smoked-chicken risotto. She wanted a sweet wine with the meal. 

Years ago, at a picnic, I had tasted Brown Brothers Dolcetto & Syrah, a fresh, fruity red wine that you serve chilled. It has a mild frizzante and a sweet blackberry finish. At under $20 a bottle, it was a hit on the financial and friend-impressing front. 

But it was also puzzling as to how the Dolcetto grape, renowned for tannic, walnut-tasting wines from the Piedmont region in Italy, had ended up in this sweet fizzy offering. 

So, I called Brown Brothers and was lucky enough to speak to Katherine Brown, a fourth-generation family winemaker turned mother and marketer. She told me that she stopped being a winemaker because the seven days a week, especially over vintage, just became a burden. But with that background and the family tradition she was my go-to person. 

“Katherine, how is it that Dolcetto grapes are grown in the middle of Victoria?” I asked.

“Oh”, she said, “we’ve been growing Dolcetto for a number of decades. Planted in our vineyards in King Valley, Heathcote and Murray Valley, it shows to be a variety that adapts well to very diverse growing conditions across our state. 

“We’ve been making this particular blend since the late 1990s and it is one of the best selling ‘off dry’ red wines in Australia.” 

“I’m sure at the price point it’s very popular but on the basis on which most wine critics rate wine, I’m sure that it doesn’t garner many ‘points’.” 

“Exactly, most mainstream journalists turn up their noses at what they think is lolly water, but there is a steady market for this wine.”

“Um, well, thanks for reinforcing that I’m not a mainstream journalist, Katherine!”

“No, what I mean is that the points system doesn’t cover wines like this very well so we wouldn’t enter it into wine shows and the like to be judged.”

“Okay, so turning to the structure of the wine, to retain sweetness you obviously stop the ferment fairly early in the winemaking process?”

“Yes, and the frizzante comes from the natural accumulation of CO2. We slowly drop the temperature of the wine to below zero, which kills off the yeast without causing damage so you don’t have the yeast being, you know, a monster. That process gives it the sweetness.” 

“And what an appropriate wine for you to be marketing!” I say cloyingly, with somewhat bemused laughter as the response. 

Katherine reminded me of the sort of woman who isolates what Cinderella really was about and who would tell the Searchers to keep on looking.

“Cinderella never asked for a prince. She asked for a night off and a dress.” –Kiera Cass