Vin Santo – the ultimate Christmas wine?

Earlier this year I had the most wonderful treat: a tasting of dozens of some of the most fascinating sweet wines in the world, Tuscan Vin Santo.

These wonderfully complex wines are made from grapes dried for months so as to concentrate their sugars – usually Trebbiano with Malvasia white grapes like those shown here in Isole e Olena's vinsantaria in Mick Rock of Cephas' picture. Some time between December and March these raisined grapes are pressed and the must put into small barrels for fermentation, sealed, and the result aged for years with much more head space...