Over sweeten to start or back sweeten after fermentation?

[GavinCiampa]

This is a pretty broad question but I'm pretty new. I'm wondering what has worked better for other people. As far as ease in process and overall outcome. Is it better to add just enough sugar at the beginning to get the brix you want then back sweeten or over sweeten at the beginning of fermentation and let that residual sugar do the job?

 

[bernardsmith]

You cannot really predict the maximum tolerance of any colony of yeast so if you aim for a potential ABV that will kill the yeast you may want to step feed the yeast sugar in known quantities so that you know the maximum sweetness the wine will finish at (the down side is that you will have very little control over the final ABV.
On the other hand if you backsweeten you have complete control over both the final ABV and the amount of sweetness. The downside of this approach is that many seasoned wine makers argue that adding sugars to the wine results in flavors that are not always truly blended in the same way that those sugars would be if they were subject to the yeast and fermentation processes.