Vendange Tardive

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

Vendange Tardive, means literally ‘late harvest’ and in France is restricted to alsace, where strict regulations cover its production, even if too many producers are meeting only the bare minima. Although all Alsace Vendange Tardive wines are made from ripe grapes, and without the aid of chaptalization, the wines themselves vary considerably in how sweet they are, with some of them tasting rich but almost bone dry. Labels give no clue as to how sweet these wines taste, making food and wine matching particularly difficult. sélection de grains nobles is Alsace’s even riper category. See also auslese and beerenauslese, their counterparts in Germany, and luxembourg.