Botrytized

botrytized or botrytis-affected, wines are those made from white grapes affected by the benevolent form of botrytis bunch rot, known in English as noble rot. Distinctively scented in youth, and with considerably more extract than most wines, they are the most complex and longest lived of all the sweet, white table wines. The noble rot smell is often described as honeyed, but it can also have an (attractive) overtone of boiled cabbage.

1. Brook, S., Liquid Gold: Dessert Wines of the World (London, 1987).
2. Olney, R., Yquem (Paris, 1985, and London, 1986).
3. Ribéreau-Gayon, P., et al., Traité d’Œnologie 1: Microbiologie du vin: Vinifications (Paris, 1998), translated by J. M. Branco, as Handbook of Enology 1: The Microbiology of Wine and Vinifications (Chichester, 2000).