Dessert wine wine is also made in the United States, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Italy, Australia, France and New Zealand in smaller quantities. Some of the most famous dessert wines, such as Château d'Yquem of Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú of Tokaj-Hegyalja in Hungary, or Seewinkel in Austria are made using grapes mouldy with "Botrytis cinerea", which sucks water out of the grape whilst imparting flavours of honey and apricot to the future wine. The fungus requires specific conditions to produce noble rot; if it is too damp, the same fungus causes destructive grey rot. Vignerons must ensure that they
Sauternes (wine) October, Sémillon grapes were known to be infected by rot and vineyard workers had to separate rotted and clean berries but they are incomplete in regards to whether the rotted grapes were used in winemaking. By the 18th century, the practice of using nobly rotted grapes in Tokaji and Germany was well known. It seems that at this point the "unspoken secret" was more widely accepted and the reputation of Sauternes rose to rival those of the German and Hungarian dessert wines. By the end of the 18th century, the region's reputation for Sauternes was internationally known: Thomas Jefferson was