On my recent visit to The Vaal Wine Route, I tasted something that really woke my pallet up. Although it shocked me, I thought I should explore it more before passing my judgement.

In wine tastings it is usually presented last. Prepared from the most-ripe sweet muscat grapes, this wine comes in red and white and is a lot thicker in appearance when running it around the glass. I’m still learning a lot about wine so I tend to stick to the basics: Red meat with red wine and fish, chicken and creamy dishes with white wine. Me, being the stubborn lady that I am once insisted on having my merlot with salmon but that’s a story for another day. Today is all about learning about dessert wines.

This is similar to non-sweet wine, the darker the dessert, the darker the wine.

I have broken down desserts into the following:

• Custard and vanilla- white wine
• Fruit and spice- white wine
• Caramels and chocolates- red wine and port

See? It’s a simple as that.