Late harvest
Fruit left on the vine until it shrivels, concentrating sugar and acid together. The ferment stops of its own accord when the alcohol overwhelms the yeast.
The numbers
Each bar drawn against all 30 styles
Alcohol
9-13%
9% - 13%
Titratable acidity
6-9 g/L
6 - 9
pH
3.1-3.5
3.1 - 3.5
Residual sugar
30-120 g/L
30 - 120
Serve at
7-10 C
Worth opening after
1 years
and it keeps improving to roughly 20 years
Sulphite at pH 3.30
26 mg/L
free SO2, for 0.8 mg/L molecular
What goes wrong
Assuming it stopped for good. A wine that stalled at 30 g/L sugar can restart in the bottle; stabilise properly and confirm stability before corking.
Usually made from
At least one of these figures is set by an appellation or labelling rule somewhere. The rest are typical published analyses of commercial examples.
More sweet and late harvest