Taking Some Mystery Out Of Dessert Wines:Part 2

Here's the second post in my dessert-wine blog featurette. In the first post, I explained what my friends and I were tasting as well as went over the dessert wines themselves. Here, you'll find the tasting notes and suggested food pairings. I've included the suggested retail price as well as bottle size so you can make your own comparisons. Let's get to the wines!

The dessert wine lineup, sans Sauterenes

It's a rough life being a wine blogger

While you are gazing at those two pictures, I'm feverishly trying to arrange this next blog entry the right way. In the previous page, I had listed the dessert wines that Keith, Bill, and myself tasted on April 23rd. Now I get to talk about them as well as suggest pairings should you decide to seek them out.

1. 2009 Kracher Cuvee Auslese - Alluring nose featuring river stone, nectarine, and stone fruit. Everything was so light but also complex, I kept smelling the glass just to get more aromas. When tasted, I found a light, sweetly acidic wine with orange pith, nectarine, dried apricot all bound by a pleasing acidity that kept each fruit flavor restrained. This contributed to the balanced, palate friendly nature of the wine. An absolute gem of a dessert wine that paired extremely well with the panna cotta, as well as sugar cookies. A-. $13-$18. 375 ml.

2. 2009 Kracher Cuvee Eiswein - This is a dollop of sweet peach juice and fresh cream! Beautiful aromas of fresh apricot and a touch of tropical fruit, a nice touch of minerality giving context to the fruits. Utterly divine on the palate, with fleshy peach backing a burst of mango and more of those delicious apricots. The mouthfeel was so ripe and rich that it felt almost creamy. We all loved this wine with the fruit tarte and also the wonderful Brazilian Mousse de Maracuja. A-. $32-38. 375 ml.

3. 2009 Kracher Beerenauslese Zweigelt - Shimmered like a glass full of rubies in the sunlight, I was enthralled by the color. Aromatically complex with notes of candied flower petals, wild strawberries and some wet rock thrown in. Surprisingly light with the nearly perfect backing of acidity against some awesome flavors like cherry and candied plums. There was even something like baking spices on the finish, which certainly kept me guessing. Simply stunning for me. I think this paired amazingly well with the chocolates from Honest Chocolates, as well as the tarte Bill brought.  B+ . $24. 375 ml.

4. 2008 Bodegas Ochoca Moscatel - Made from small berry muscat vines, this was my first time tasting a dessert wine from Navarra, Spain. The bouquet was explosive, like a sweet tropical fruit salad drizzled in white grape juice. A touch of acidity balanced the notes of passion fruit, pineapple, and mango. At first, it was somewhat difficult to wrap my head around what I smelled. The Ochoca moscatel was that good! I tasted golden apples, peaches, tropical fruit and more of the white grape juice all seamlessly blending together. My favorite wine of the night. Another stellar pairing with the chocolates and also the fruit tarte. A (95 points). $20. STRONG BUY. 375 ml.

5. 2003 Sigalas Vinsanto Santorini VQPRD -  The first vinsanto I had tasted in a while, blew my socks off. Insane smells of caramelized sugar and dried figs, even a hint of toasted nuts. At once interesting and alluring, I could put away a bottle of this myself, with no problem. The sweet nutty flavor carried through the palate, mixing with figs and a hint of burnt sugar. Pleasing acidity was there throughout, so the Sigalas vinsanto avoided getting into the saccharine-sweet territory that had me worried when I conceived the tasting earlier this year. Excellent, spicy finish and I was content to sip it on it's own, not needing any desserts. A-. $50. 500 ml.

6. 2009 Seven of Hearts Coupe's Cuvee - Sent down to me after the other dessert wines had arrived, this was the first time I had ever tried pinot noir made into a dessert wine. The aromatics were fascinating, with an earthy, almost barnyard aroma (in a good way!), notes of sweet cherry and even what I thought was a touch of menthol on the back end. When I tasted the Coupe's Cuvee I found a great flavor of cedar and red cherry along with great spices and a tangy acidity. The complexity surprised me, in the best of ways. Along with the complex flavors and aromas was the awesome color, I thought it looked like an electrified ruby sitting my glass. Paired with the Honest Chocolates, it shined. The flavors all melded together to create a sensational taste. B+ $21. BUY. 375ml.

7. 2003 Chateau Rieussec Sauterenes - 2003 was apparently a good year for Sauterenes, and the Chateau Rieussec is aging beautifully. Smells like botrytis laden grapes, hints of pine with a bit of acidic astringency. I tasted sweet cream, apricots, beautiful hints of caramel and hard candy almost like a Werthers. The way it effortlessly glides around in your mouth reminds you why Sauterenes are so highly prized. I loved the pairing with the panna cotta and on its own, needing no accompaniment save for a beautiful sunset. B+. $39. 375ml.

We got into Bill's tarte, hard.

Wrapping up a post like this is not easy for me, because I don't know if words can express my gratitude to those who participated. This was the first time I reached out en masse (so to speak) to try to put together a series of blog posts framed around one type of wine. In my opinion it worked out perfectly and I'd like to thank Catharine Seda, Constance Chamberlain, Byron and Dana Dooley, Keith, and Bill. They readily agreed to ship me samples of wine, bring tasty desserts, and reminded me to get my butt in gear with these posts. A thousand thank-you's, I am deeply appreciative of the support. Until next time!

Panna Cotta, so good!!

This tasting was a mix of wines sent as media samples and donations from a private cellar.

Beau Carufel

Taking Some Mystery Out of Dessert Wines

Dessert wines can make even an experienced wine connoisseur nervous. While most people know of dessert wines, there's something of an air of mystery to that category. Some of that air might be cultivated, as way of elevating this class of wine above others *coughCHAMPAGNEcough* but for the most part, dessert wines are a non-threatening, delicious, fun way to cap off a memorable meal. In February I had the brilliant idea to create a couple of blog posts detailing my experiences with dessert wines and that in turn would hopefully spur some dialogue and exploration on your end.

I reached out to some contacts in the wine industry and soon had a wonderful assembly of dessert wines to taste and write about.I was lucky enough to have samples from Austria, Greece, Spain, and Oregon sent to me for this tasting. A special thanks goes out to the Brand Action Team, Balzac Communications, and Seven of Hearts winery for generously sending me some amazing wines.

The next step was to figure out some food combinations, in an effort to make this more of a "real world" kind of test. Since I had invited my buddies Keith and Bill to participate, I figured why not put them to work procuring some tasty, sugar-laden goodies for us? They each contributed various pastries, chocolate bread, and a special Brazilian Mousse de Maracujá dessert while I contributed some panna cotta, one of my all time favorite desserts (and I brought the wines). Our plan was to try the wines with various desserts, both to mimic more casual dishes and also to throw desserts into the mix that you may have at an upscale restaurant.

On the next page (see the link at the bottom of this one) I'll go more into detail with tasting notes about each wine as well as the dessert pairings that I found to be very interesting and fun.

If you're with me so far, good. Some of you might be wondering what exactly a "dessert wine" is. Definitions vary around the world, as do names. The Aussies even call them "stickies", how quintessentially Australian! At their heart though, the vast majority of "dessert wine" is sweet in nature. This is often due to elevated sugar levels left over after primary fermentation has been completed, called "residual sugar". Two of the main reasons for those elevated sugar levels come from the way the grapes are grown and harvested.

In wines from Sauterenes and Barsac in Bordeaux, the sauvignon blanc and semillion grapes are allowed to succumb to "Noble Rot" caused by the botrytis bacterium. This rot concentrates the sugars in the grape by drying it, allowing for a sweeter wine to be made. Alternately, a method practiced in Canada, New Zealand, and Austria (among other places) produces what's called "ice wine" where the grapes are allowed to freeze on the vine, thereby concentrating their sugars so that when pressed, the resulting juice is lower in water and higher in sugar. There is no hard and fast rule about what method you have to use to produce sweet wines though.

During the tasting, we had wine from Sauternes as well as an ice wine (eiswein) from Austria. There were also several others; a muscatel from Navarra, an Auslese made from chardonnay and welschriesling (not regular riesling), a vin santo from Santorini, and a Beerenauslese made from the zweigelt grape. Obviously we were trying totally new varietals in the form of dessert wines, an awesome way to get acquainted with them.

My friends at Seven of Hearts in Oregon contributed a bottle of their dessert port, made from pinot noir grapes grown in a couple of vineyards in the Willamette Valley. Pinot noir, you ask? I asked too, and at the very least this is a fun experiment with the varietal. The Coupe's Cuvee was made in the traditional style, with some brandy being added at a certain point to arrest the fermentation and preserve some residual sugar. That's also how Port is made, one of my all-time favorite drinks!

Keith and Bill getting dessertified

Below is the list of dessert wines we tasted on April 23rd:

1. 2009 Kracher Cuvee Auslese
2. 2009 Kracher Cuvee Eiswein
3. 2009 Kracher Beerenauslese Zweigelt
4. 2008 Bodegas Ochoca Moscatel
5. 2003 Sigalas Vinsanto
6. 2009 Seven of Hearts Coupe's Cuvee
7. 2003 Chateau Rieussec Sauterenes

Mousse de Maracuja

Click Here To Go To Part Two

Beau Carufel