Just thought I would pass on something that has been touched on but never specifically spelled out, in regard to back sweetening. I like nice dry dinner wine, but I also really like a dessert type wine and to make it dessert, its got to be sweet. As we all know there are lots of sugar based options for back sweetening, You can use refined sugar, syrups and concentrates. With so many to choose from which ones are best?? I have discovered that some back sweeteners work way better than others. IMHO the least effective back sweetener is table sugar. If you back sweeten by the glass what you end up tasting is two different things, wine and sugar. There is no blending of the flavors and the sugar even though sweet seams to be intrusive. If you back sweeten prior to bottling you can mellow out that table sugar taste with age but even after it has had lots of time the sugar still stands out quite a bit. a better option is to back sweeten with something more similar to what the wine was like before it was fermented. I discovered this quite by accident one evening when I was looking for a dessert type wine and all I had was a dry sour red. Having tried sugar before I new it wouldn't work, my solution was to add some grape juice, not a lot, just enough to add a hint of sweetness. the result was fantastic. As I have made different wines the same has applied. Syrups and and 100% concentrates are a much better way to back sweeten than table sugar. The final taste is more unified. Apple and white grape are common bases for commercial fruit punches but in most cases their flavor is submissive and you couldn't pick them out as a flavor. The same is true when used to back sweeten wine. They add all the sweetness required but do not mask or pollute the original flavor of the wine. Just thought I would share what I discovered.