Browse Tag

sweet

Roussillière rabbit, viognier’s for kids

[vineyard]Cuilleron 2001 “Roussillière” (Rhône) – From 500 ml and partially-fermented grapes. The problem with Cuilleron’s wines is that they’re overwhelmingly goopy, structure-free, and far too soup-like for their own good. Here’s a wine that goes ahead and admits its faults by intent, by leaving unfermented sugar in the wine. The result is far more pleasant than Cuilleron’s allegedly dry wines, and I think the sweetly floral nature of the raw material is ideally-suited for the dessert category. (9/09)

Stinky infant

Quinta do Infantado Tawny Porto Medium-Dry (Douro) – After much dalliance upon the occasion of this producer’s first appearance on U.S. shores, I gave up ever buying their wines, due to the vast majority of them (approaching 90%) being corked…but only mine. Everyone else seemed to be able to enjoy the wine in untainted form. I can certainly claim no evidence of systemic taint, and in fact it seemed to be very much a personal vendetta the TCA gods were waging against me (and, unfortunately, against the producer’s wines when they were so unlucky as to be carried home by me, or opened by someone else in my house), but trying to find an intact bottle was just hopeless. So after a hiatus of a few years, I decided to dip my toe in these stanky waters once more. The result? What else? Corked. Corked into oblivion. Obviously, I am not meant to own or drink these wines. (9/09)

Let me stress, per the comments below: this is, as far as I can tell, my issue and my issue only. I am personally cursed by being virtually unable to experience a non-corked Infantado. My results should not — and in fact, have not — been replicated by others.

The end

[vineyard]Donaldson Family “Pegasus Bay” 1999 “Finale” (Waipara) – From 375 ml. My last, and best, bottle, exploding with spicy complexity, rich bronzed peach, and luxuriant texture. Fabulous. (9/09)

Xim or xer

Toro Albalá 2003 Pedro Ximénez (Montilla-Moriles) – Caramel, brown sugar, and motor oil. Very sticky and ungodly sweet, even beyond the wine’s usual clutch and pander, and almost impossible to clear from one’s palate. I mean, it’s incredibly impressive, and I guess accomplished in the sense that it is unquestionably achieving what it sets out to achieve, but… (10/06)

Empordà/expordà

Carreras “Masia Pairal Can Carreras” Garnatxa de l’Empordà Costa Brava Vi Dolç Natural (Cataluña) – Thin and watery. Burnt brown sugar. Wan as hell. (10/06)

Be-bop-a-re-bop

[label]Forestedge Rhubarb Wine (Minnesota) – Unlike so many fruit wines, this doesn’t just taste like the fruit with some alcohol, this actually tastes like wine. There’s a complexity to the tart green-red sharpness, even a bit of what just might be sandy minerality, alongside good acidity and the faintest touch of sweetness to offset. Pretty good. (8/09)

Hornets’ nest

Vino de Shingobee 2006 Staghorn Sumac Wine (Minnesota) – Past its drink-by date, with the reddish bite of sumac given over to semi-oxidized sucrosity. I think this would have been fairly interesting a few years ago. (8/09)

Braised tardives with morels

Trimbach 2000 Gewurztraminer “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Trimbach’s late-harvest wines, especially their gewürztraminers, are packed to the gills with sugar. Their nearly singular achievement, however, is making it seem like they’re not. 2000 wasn’t a firm, crisp, high-acid year, and yet this wine seems only marginally sweeter than many a “regular” gewürztraminer from some of their hangtime-obsessed neighbors, and pairs that sweetness with a surprising wallop of firm acidity. The fruit’s peach and cashew with only hints of lychee, and the minerality’s copper and salt. Bacon, smoke…only suggestions at the moment, and their full expression is far, far in the future. A lovely wine, deft and delineated…and when’s the last time you read that about a late-harvest gewürztraminer? (7/09)

Words, words, words

[vineyard]Overgaauw 1997 Cape Vintage South African Liqueur Wine (Stellenbosch) – I admire the attempt to avoid using the word “port,” but this seems a little convoluted. The wine, however, is anything but difficult. A burst – nay, a fireworks display – of berries, still structured but with nicely-maturing spices (clove, nutmeg), forward and fruity. “Port” is a category in which South Africans appear to take much pride, but I have to say that after tasted around a dozen on a recent trip, I found the category – and many of the big names – pretty mediocre. Not so this, a library release to contrast with the winery’s more current vintage, and already showing a sophistication and worldliness that many of its brethren lack. No, it’s not up to the full range of complexities in a true Port, but it’s also not done maturing. (7/09)