Noble rot
Noble rot (French: La Pourriture Noble; German: Edelfäule) is the benevolent form of a grey fungus, Botrytis cinerea, affecting wine grapes. Infestation by Botrytis requires moist conditions, and if the weather stays wet, the malevolent form, grey rot, can destroy crops of grapes. Grapes infected with Botrytis when they are ripe, but then exposed to drier conditions become partially raisined, and this form of infection is known as noble rot. Picked at a certain point during infestation can produce particularly fine and concentrated sweet wine. Some of the finest Botrytized wines are literally picked berry by berry in successive tris (French for "pickings").
The best known fine wines made from noble rot infested grapes are Tokaji (Hungary), Sauternes (France) and beerenauslese or trockenbeerenauslese (Germany). Others include the Italian Amarone, Romanian Cotnari and Austrian Ausbruch. Depending on conditions the grapes may be only minimally botrytized. Noble rot has also been imported for use in artificial inoculation by winemakers in California and Australia. The spores are sprayed over a vineyard to induce infection.