Almost everybody who walks in asking for sweet wine asks for one of three: Stella Rosa, Bartenura or Risata. They're good. They're also very nearly the same wine - Moscato grapes, gentle fizz, white or pink. There are two other styles that answer the same craving and almost nobody tries them.
Lambrusco is sweet, sparkling and red
It's a fizzy red from northern Italy and it's what Italians have drunk with fatty food for generations. Same soft bubble, same sweetness, but it's red, so it stands up to sausage, cured meat and hard cheese in a way a white Moscato cannot. Under seven dollars a bottle. If you've never had a sweet red with bubbles in it, this is where to start.
Brachetto smells of strawberry before anything is added
It's a red grape from Piedmont known for exactly one thing: on its own it smells of strawberries and roses. That's why berry wines built on Brachetto taste like fruit instead of sweets, and it's the one sweet wine that genuinely works with chocolate and with cake.
And if you want to stay on Moscato
At least change house. Castello del Poggio and Cupcake make Moscato d'Asti from the same DOCG zone as Bartenura and Risata, and both cost less. Candoni is a shade drier, which is the answer for anyone who says Moscato is too much.
The magnum changes the arithmetic
A 1.5 litre pours ten glasses instead of five and costs less than two 750s. For a long afternoon it's simply the right buy, and once open it keeps for days in the fridge, because sugar is a preservative.
Cold. Properly cold
Cold hides sweetness. A sweet wine served warm cloys; the same bottle properly chilled tastes fresh. Two hours in the fridge, not twenty minutes.
Beverage World Package Store
6731 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, Doraville, GA 30360. (770) 441-0001. Open 10am to 9pm Monday to Wednesday, 10am to 11pm Thursday to Saturday, and 11am to 9pm Sunday. Delivery from $4.99.
On our shelf right now
Prices and stock read from our own inventory when this page was built.