The Renée White: Montenegro's Award-Winning Dessert Wine

Montenegro is not a place most wine drinkers associate with fortified dessert wine. It's known, when it's known at all, for Vranac, its indigenous red grape, and for a handful of small estates working in relative obscurity outside the country's borders. So it's genuinely unusual that one of the most decorated wines to come out of Montenegro in the last decade is a golden, honey-toned dessert wine made by a family estate near Podgorica: the Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine.

The Story Behind the Name

The Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine exists because of a decades-old ambition and a legal technicality. According to Radevic Estate's own account, longtime winemaker Ivan Dašić had wanted to make a port-style wine since his student days, an idea that went nowhere under Montenegro's Communist-era wine industry, which had no interest in the style. When Dašić joined Radevic Estate, owner Dr. Goran Radević gave him the chance to finally make it.

There was one complication: "Port" is a protected designation of origin under European law, reserved for wines produced in Portugal's Douro Valley. A Montenegrin estate legally can't label its wine "Port," no matter how closely it follows the style. So the Radevic family named their fortified white wine after Renée Radević, Dr. Radević's wife and the estate's co-founder, and the Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine was born.

What Makes It a Fortified White Wine

The Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine is made from late-harvest Chardonnay grapes, left on the vine well past the point most producers would pick, so the fruit concentrates and develops the deep, honeyed character the wine is known for. Radevic Estate classifies it as a "Dessert" wine, and it's produced in the same broad tradition as other fortified dessert wines: grapes picked for concentration and complexity rather than for a crisp table wine, then developed into a rich, golden final product with a natural sweetness that never tips into cloying territory. It's a technique that has nothing to do with Montenegro's more commonly exported reds and everything to do with an internal ambition on the estate to prove the country could produce a world-class dessert wine, not just a world-class Vranac.

Tasting Notes

Poured, the Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine is a deep golden color with a bouquet built around honeysuckle and the smell of just-baked fruit. On the palate, expect ripe apricot and mango, wrapped in a honey-brioche sweetness that coats the mouth without becoming heavy. The finish is long and reminiscent of crème brûlée, a caramelized sweetness that lingers well after the glass is empty. Despite its richness, tasters consistently note that it stays balanced rather than cloying, which is part of why it pairs as well with savory dishes like foie gras as it does with dessert.

The Awards

The Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine has won silver at the Monde Selection International Wine Competition for three consecutive vintages, a Brussels-based competition judged in accordance with OIV evaluation standards. It also won gold at the 2018 OIV International Wine Competition in Ljubljana, where 43 judges from 15 countries evaluated 425 wine samples submitted from 23 countries, one of the most rigorous international judging panels the estate has entered. For a family winery producing its first vintages only in 2009, back-to-back medals of that caliber at competitions of that scale are a significant result, and they're a large part of why the Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine has become the wine most associated with the estate internationally.

Serving Suggestions

Serve the Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine lightly chilled, as you would most fortified dessert wines, to keep its sweetness in balance and let the honeysuckle and stone-fruit notes stay bright rather than turning syrupy. It's built for the dessert course, but it's worth trying alongside a savory pairing too. Foie gras is the classic match Radevic Estate itself points to, and the wine's honeyed richness also works well with sharp, salty cheeses that need something sweet to offset them, in the same way a Sauternes or a true Port might be used at the end of a meal elsewhere in Europe.

How It Anchors the Radevic Estate Tasting Experience

The Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine isn't reserved for the top-tier visit. It's poured at both levels of Radevic Estate's tasting experience: it's part of the lighter, food-free tasting, and it's also included in the full two-hour tour and tasting alongside the estate's other award-winning wines. That's a deliberate choice. For many visitors, it ends up being the wine they remember most clearly after the visit, in part because a golden, honey-toned Montenegrin dessert wine is not what most people expect to find at a boutique estate outside Podgorica. Our visitor FAQ guide covers exactly what's included at each tasting tier if you're deciding which one to book.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine an actual Port wine?
Not officially. "Port" is a protected designation of origin reserved for wines from Portugal's Douro Valley, so Radevic Estate can't legally use that name. Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine is made in a similar fortified, late-harvest style but is a distinct Montenegrin wine in its own right.

How sweet is the Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine?
It's classified as a dessert wine with a honeyed, apricot-and-mango sweetness, but tasters consistently describe it as balanced rather than cloying, which is part of why it works with savory pairings like foie gras, not just dessert.

Can I buy Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine outside of Montenegro?
It's difficult to find. Limited production means it rarely appears through international retailers, and when it does, it commands a meaningful premium. Tasting it at the estate is the most reliable way to try it.

What's the difference between the Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine and the Renée Red?
The White Fortified Dessert Wine is made from late-harvest Chardonnay grapes and carries honeysuckle and stone-fruit notes; the Renée Red is a separate fortified dessert wine made from Syrah grapes, with notes of rose, vanilla, and raspberry.

Is Renée White Fortified Dessert Wine included in every Radevic Estate tasting?
Yes. It's poured at both tasting tiers, the lighter option and the full two-hour tour and tasting, making it one of the few wines every visitor tries regardless of which experience they book.

Why This Story Matters

A small, family-run estate in a country with no real fortified-wine tradition, producing a dessert wine that competes on the same stage as established European producers, is not a common story in the wine world. It's also a useful example of what sets Radevic Estate apart more broadly: a willingness to pursue an idea a winemaker had been chasing for decades, on a plot of land that has been in the same family for twenty-eight generations. If that kind of story is part of what draws you to smaller estates over larger commercial producers, it's worth reading about how that same philosophy shows up across the rest of the Radevic Estate wine portfolio, and in the broader context of Montenegro's wine tourism scene.