Wine · Terminology

Late harvest

Grapes picked well after normal ripeness, for extra sugar and concentration.

Late harvest means leaving grapes on the vine beyond normal picking date so they accumulate more sugar. Wines made this way are usually sweet or off-dry, richer in body, and lower in acidity than their dry equivalents.

Two mechanisms are at work, and the label rarely tells you which. The grapes may simply have gone on ripening, or they may have started to shrivel — losing water and concentrating everything, a process called passerillage. In some regions noble rot joins in as well.

In practice

  • The risk is entirely on the grower: autumn rain, rot, frost, hail and birds all become likelier every week the fruit hangs.
  • Yields drop sharply as berries dehydrate, so the wines are expensive to make.
  • Acidity falls while sugar rises, so the best late-harvest wines come from naturally high-acid varieties — Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Furmint.
  • Harvest is often done in several passes, taking only the ripest bunches.

Where you'll meet it

The four routes to a sweet wine

Route Mechanism Examples
Late harvest / passerillage Extra hang time, water loss on the vine Vendanges Tardives, Spätlese, Jurançon
Noble rot Fungal dehydration Sauternes, Tokaji, TBA
Freezing Water removed as ice Eiswein, Icewine
Drying after picking Dehydration off the vine Vin Santo, Recioto, passito

A fifth route — fortification — stops the fermentation rather than concentrating the fruit, and gives a different kind of sweet wine entirely.

Reading the label

  • Alsace VT and German Prädikat terms carry legal minimum must weights.
  • "Late Harvest" in the US, Chile or South Africa usually has no legal minimum at all; a "Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc" can be barely off-dry.
  • Alcohol is the giveaway: a genuinely sweet late-harvest wine either has high alcohol or obvious residual sugar, and the label's stated alcohol tells you which.

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