Tag: Dessert Wine
Quady Winery Essensia 2006
I’ve gradually come to realize that I am a big fan of dessert wines. It all started with a couple bottles of port that we tried during the last couple of years, hit a crescendo with the Domaine de Montbourgeau Vin de Paille, continued with the Castello della Paneretta Vin Santo Chianto Classico that we opened during the holidays, and was reaffirmed today when we opened the Quady Winery Essensia. The complexity that good examples of these wines bring to the glass just leaves me absolutely impressed and intrigued. The flavors that unfold in the nose and palate can be utterly enticing.
What is especially interesting to me is that I’ve been entranced by a series of dessert wines that are all quite different from one another, both in how they are made and in what the finished product is like. Broadly speaking there are three methods for producing sweet wines:
- Fortified Wines: the first method involves fortifying a wine by adding a high-strength neutral spirit (grape-based) to it. This serves to stop any further fermentation in the wine because the high alcohol levels kill off any remaining yeasts. Wines made in this manner are typically raised to 15-20% alcohol. This is how port is made for instance. After vinifying the wines the winemakers add 140 proof neutral spirit, in this case brandy. This is the most straighforward means of producing dessert wines.
- Ice Wines: the second method involves letting the grapes freeze on the vine, and then vinifying the juice from the frozen grapes. The sugars in the grapes do not freeze, and so when the frozen grapes are pressed the result is a very concentrated must from which the wine will be made. This is a very tricky method for producing dessert wines because the grapes (in Canada, Germany, and Austria) are required to freeze naturally. This requires the grower to leave the grapes on the vine anywhere up to several months after the normal harvest time, meaning that if a natural freeze does not come soon enough it is possible for the grapes to rot and the harvest will be either severely reduced or outright ruined. Additionally, because of the exceptionally high sugar levels in the must, fermentation proceeds significantly more slowly than for normal wines, and can often take several months to complete. Canada, Germany, and Austria are most renowned for these types of wines.
- Botrytized Wines: Also known as “Noble Rot”, this method of producing dessert wines involves the grapes developing a form of grey fungus named Botrytis cinerea that leads to their becoming slightly raisined, concentrating the sugars and leading to the development of a unique set of flavors. Because the rate at which botrytis develops in the bunches, most vineyards will make a great number of passes through the vineyard to ensure that all of the grapes are picked at optimum ripeness. Whether the grapes develop the ideal form of botrytis is exceedingly weather dependent, leading to a distinct unpredictability vintage to vintage. Similar to ice wines, the production costs for botrytized wines are typcally very high due to the labor intensive nature of the necessary vineyard practices and the uncertainty that accompanies each vintage. The wines of Sauternes in Bordeaux, Tokay in Hungary, and the Trockenbeerenauslese of Germany are well-known examples of this method of producing dessert wines.
The Quady Winey began producing sweet wines in the late 1970’s and has developed a solid reputation for its lineup of wines. They produce Essensia and Elysium, both dessert wines based on varieties of the Muscat grape, a port-style wine, and two wines that are also based on Muscat but come in at ~4-5% alcohol and are intended as lighter-style dessert wines.
The Essensia is composed of 100% Orange Muscat, one of a handful of varieties of the Muscat grape. After vinifying the wine Quady fortifies it (“slightly” as their website says) to bring it up to 15% alcohol. The wine then ages for 3 months in oak barrels before being bottled in 375ml and 750ml bottles.
Appearance: lustrous golden yellow
Nose: apples, pears, orange peels, honey, golden raisins
Palate: lightly velvety texture, poached pears, orange essence, apricots, nice layers of flavor, slight acidity keeps everything vibrant and interesting, not cloying by any means
Finish: flavors of warm apricots and bright apples give way to fresh blood oranges
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Castello della Paneretta Vin Santo del Chianti Classico 2001
I was immediately hooked when I read this description of Vin Santo in Vino Italiano:
“Vin Santo is a unique experience, almost like a cross between a wine and a whiskey…the fermentation literally takes years, and no new wine is added during the fermentation and maturation, meaning that over the course of the three-plus years a Vin Santo is required to age, there is some evaporation. The resultant wines are usually a burnished amber.”
While dessert wines generally hold only a small interest to me, after having tried the Vin de Paille from Domaine de Montbourgeau I am fascinated by the concept of dessert wines that are aged for several years and allowed to oxidize to some degree. The incredible wide range of flavors that I experienced in that Vin de Paille has stuck in my mind and left a palpable excitement at the idea of being able to find something similar to that once again.
Most incredibly, the experience of drinking a Vin Santo was actually better than I was prepared for. While out at dinner recently the restaurant offered a selection of dessert wines, including Vin Santo. I couldn’t resist, and was definitely rewarded. The wine was a amberish-gold, the nose spoke of candied fruits and nuts, the palate was filled with flavors. Very exciting indeed. The bottle that I was tasting was from Badia a Coltibuono, and so I began to keep my eyes open for that or other Vin Santos that I might run across.
Shortly thereafter I found one at an interesting little wine shop in the North End named The Wine Bottega. It struck me as one of those shops where they don’t offer a huge selection, but what they do offer is going to be top-notch. So I snatched up a bottle of the one Vin Santo that they had, this Castello della Paneretta Vin Santo del Chianti Classico 2001.
Castello della Paneretta is a small to medium-sized winery in the Chianti Classico zone in Tuscany. They produce about 100,000 bottles annually from the 16 hectares of vineyards that they own. Their portfolio includes seven wines, all of which are reds aside from the Vin Santo. I don’t know how their wines in general, or this Vin Santo in particular, stack up against the spectrum of wines from Tuscany. Unfortunately they were not included in Italian Wines 2008, which perhaps is indicative, I’m not sure. But I’m comfortable giving them the benefit of the doubt, in large part due to the shop I got the bottle from.
The Vin Santo consists of 70% trebbiano and 30% malvasia. The grapes are harvested in September and left to dry on straw mats until January. During those four months the grapes gradually dry out, concentrating their sugars. After pressing the wine, now measuring 16%, is put into small oak casks and left to age for anywhere from three years on up. I’ve seen one Vin Santo in shops that has been aged for 16 years! In the case of Castello della Paneretta the Vin Santo is aged for 5 years before bottling. Notably, the Vin de Paille from Domaine de Montbourgeau that was so good was also a 2001…
The resultant wine is really quite remarkable. The color is amber with rich gold accents. The wine is clearly very viscous as it leaves distinct tears on the side of the glass. The nose is dominated by the scent of walnuts, golden raisins, candied cherries, and a hint of sweet acidity. The wine is thick on the palate, coating your mouth completely, and is much brighter than those would indicate. There is sufficient acidity to brighten the flavors, providing an excellent backdrop for the flavors of raisins, apples, walnuts, and candied pears. The finish starts with a hint of fresh strawberries and raspberries that slowly gives way to a prolonged taste of walnuts. The finish is quite long.
My memories of the Vin de Paille are too long ago to fairly compare this Vin Santo to it. Off the cuff I’m leaning towards saying that the Vin de Paille left me a shade more excited, but that may have less to do with its flavors than with its backstory (I still have a very soft spot in my heart for wines of the Jura). This Vin Santo is very, very good and I feel very lucky to have taken a chance on this bottle. I am especially pleased to know that while I may long to once again have a bottle of Vin de Paille on hand, Vin Santos are much, much easier to find, and at a much better price as well.
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Domaine de Montbourgeau L’Etoile Vin de Paille 2000
This bottle of vin de paille from Domaine de Montbourgeau was the first chance I had had to try this style of wine made by drying the grapes in straw boxes before vinifying them. The wine is then made in the sous voile style. The end result is a wine that bears much of the sweetness of a dessert wine, while coming in at a lower alcohol percentage than most dessert wines, and having many of the characteristics of a sherry – nuttiness, rancio, walnut, spices, etc.
The Domaine de Montbourgeau vin de paille is, in a word, fantastic. This is one of the few wines that I’ve had that has really blown me away. As much as I liked the vin jaune from Puffeney, I found this wine to be beautiful. The nose carries notes of walnut, candied apples, poached pears, and aged balsamic vinegar. The palate is rich and velvety with up-front flavors of nuts, spices, brown sugar, and baked apples, and then back again to walnuts and almonds. The finish is very long, begins with warm caramel and tails away to nutty flavors accompanied by a bright acidity.
I could not get enough of this wine, and the 375ml bottle went far too quickly among the four of us who shared it. It was the only bottle we had, but this is a wine that I will always keep my eyes open for and will definitely grab if the opportunity to do so arises again. What a fabulous wine, and a testament to the fact that my occasional obsessions with different wines, etc., sometimes leads to the discovery of a real gem.
In this case, the obsession was with the wines of the Jura region of France. A couple of years ago when I first stumbled across the Art Of Eating the issue that I found was devoted to “Wines of the Jura”. I was instantly taken in. I had never heard of the Jura region of France, of the wine it was most famous for – Vin Jaune -, nor of the savagnin grape making up that wine. All of it was new to me, and what is more the wines were both entirely unique and hard to find. The more that I read about the wines, in this article and elsewhere, the more I was interested in finding the opportunity to taste some of them.
The most noticeable difference to wines made in the Jura region was the frequent mention of the sous voile method of wine-making. This approach involves the winemaker not topping up the barrels that the wine ages in, and in some cases not fully filling them up to begin with. The result is that the resting wine develops a thin layer of yeast on its surface that limits the amount of oxidation that takes place, allowing certain beneficial flavors to develop while preventing the wine from turning to vinegar during the wine’s years of aging. In the case of vin jaune the wine is required to age for 6 years and 3 months, during which time the wine develops a range of flavors including hazelnuts, walnuts, curry, along with a noticeable viscosity and depth. Other wines made in this fashion will be aged sous voile for differing periods of time, depending on the winemaker’s preference.
The other noticeable difference was the handful of different grape varietals unique to the region. These include the white-wine grape savagnin (vin jaune is comprised of 100% savagnin), and two red varietals poulsard and trousseau. All three of these are nearly entirely limited to their production in the Jura. The other two more common varietals grown in the Jura are chardonnay and pinot noir.
So as time passed I found a few bottles here and there. A “Fleur de Chardonnay” from Domaine Labet, a Chardonnay made in the sous voile fashion giving the wine a nutty flavor to undercut the sweetness of the chardonnay and blended with a touch of savagnin to lend it a distinct acidity. This was followed by a savagnin from Domaine Berthet-Bondet, a poulsard and a vin jaune from Jacques Puffeney, a pair of savagnins from Domaine de Montbourgeau, and one from Domaine Andre et Mireille Tissot. Of these, those that stood out most were the savagnins from Montbourgeau, the poulsard from Puffeney, and the vin jaune from Puffeney.
The vin jaune from Puffeney was amazing, the farthest thing from any wine I had ever tasted. Whereas the savagnins that I had tasted all carried elements born of the sous voile style, the vin jaune had them in spades. Whereas the other savagnins achieved a balance between the wine’s inherent sweetness, acidity, and the nuttiness from the sous voile, the vin jaune fully embraced the results of the sous voile method. The wine was rife with nuts, caramel, curry, rancio, and had a velvety mouthfeel that led to a finish that just lingered on your palate for ages.
All that being said, while the vin jaune was wonderful and such a unique experience, it really did not hold a candle to this vin de paille. Again, this wine was simply amazing. Not a wine for every occasion, its sweetness and boldness required some contemplation around when best to drink it, but a fabulous wine when you find the right time to open it up. I’d recommend this over and over again.
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