When one thinks of all the great wines out there today, it is easy to gloss over the fact that many of them are dessert wines. Reviews from highly regarded critics like those found in the Wine Advocate and Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar tend to rank some of these wines very highly, and, unless it is Chateau d’Yquem, the prices are normally not exceedingly high. Actually, compared to the rising prices of Bordeaux and Burgundy these days, they are a relative value for the money!

Yet, consumers tend to shy away from these. Why? one may ask. There is a certain stigma that surrounds dessert wines…that they just are not worthy of purchasing, that there are too few occasions to drink them in comparison to dry still wine, etc, etc. Then, there is that select few that love dessert wines, but are afraid to buy them, fearing that they will be stigmatized as a “sweet wine lover”.

Make no mistake about it: dessert wines are sweet. Yet, they should not be overly so; there is a distinct difference between drinking Banyuls, the respectable red dessert wine made from Grenache Noir in Rousillon, and Manischewitz Concord Grape! There is a growing interest, however, in fine dessert wines, and there is growing demand as consumers become educated to appreciate and enjoy dessert wines, and not dismiss them as just “sweet wines.”

Most renowned dessert wines come from countries such as Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States – countries that also have well-established reputations for making quality still wines. There are notable exceptions to the rule, however; no dessert wine connoisseur can ignore the Hungarian Tokaji or Canadian Ice Wine.

With this in mind, we turn our attention to Greece, a country that is almost unknown to dessert wine lovers, and, up until recently, was not highly regarded for still wines. Yet, Greece is one of the oldest wine-producing countries in the world, with evidence that the Greeks were making wine nearly 7,000 years ago. In Greek mythology, the god Dionysus spread the cult of winemaking, and the sweet wines of Greece were considered, in ancient Greek and Roman times, to be the nectar of gods.

We did a comparative tasting of several different Greek dessert wines to see if they can measure up to the aged Muscat, Banyuls, Sauternes, Dulce Monastrell, Eiswein, Ports, and other famous dessert wines…and for your pleasure, here they are: