Hi Berserkers,
Another sweet wine roundup for you with a focus on 3 winning Riesling sweet wines, a Kracher and a Quady. Enjoy.
Henry of Pelham 2004 Riesling Icewine – (LCBO, Toronto) This icewine is a gold standard in Canada and the only Riesling icewine that the LCBO in Ontario has added to its Vintages Essentials collection list – Every single LCBO store must have a supply in stock. And with good reason.
Strong apricot nose, full body, bright gold in color. Rich tastes of lemon ad apricot with a fantastic hit of strong acidity that lingers throughout the finish. Very sweet and a very strong minerality. One of the few icewines I can actually say that about, too. Try before you buy, though, at a tasting if you can as a couple of friends who enjoy icewine as well and have tried it with me have said they found it a bit too sweet for their liking even with the great balance. Highly recommended. ![[winner.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/07ec25c9fd71159fe15d7f1ba5fad64e91238d0e.gif "winner"){kind=small}
Magnotta 2004 Riesling Icewine: (Magnotta store, Toronto) This icewine holds the distinction of being the first-ever Riesling icewine I ever bought. I found it at Magnotta’s own store on Yonge just north of Finch here in Toronto. Just as good as the Henry of Pelham Riesling icewine if not better.
Also full-bodied and bright gold, the nose is more mango and passion fruit. It’s also Honey sweet with a very strong minerality but it’s got a slightly higher acidity than the 2004 Magnotta Riesling and even a bit of toffee flavour What’s even better is the price point – $40 for a well-aged Riesling icewine. You just can’t beat the price for the high quality. Highly recommended.
Mount Horrocks 2003 Cordon Cut Riesling – (LCBO, Toronto) This wine is unusual for a number of reasons. It’s a Passito made in Australia, not Italy; it’s made from Riesling, not Muscat; and it’s made by cutting the cordons on the vines itself as opposed to removing the grapes and setting them to dry on mats or boxes away from the vines.
Dark gold color, medium body, with a nose of golden seedless raisins.
If you’re wondering what a passito would taste like if it had some residual acidity, this is your answer. Sweet golden raisins with a touch of Riesling’s high acidity. Very strong minerality as well. It is not as sweet as an icewine, I should point out, so you may find this much more enjoyable if you find icewine far too sweet for your liking. Three Riesling winners in a row. Highly recommended.
Kracher 2004 Nouvelle Vague No. 1 Zweigelt – (LCBO, Toronto) A rare botrytis-affected sweet red wine, this one is from Austria’s late and legendary Alois Kracher. Strong nose of plasticine and botrytis with a bit of berry. Light ruby red color. Of course it has a full and syrupy body as one would expect from any well-made TBA wine.
Tastes of strawberries, a little lemon, and some plum along with some tobacco and black pepper in absolutely perfect balance with honey sweetness, botrytis, and acidity. Essentially, this is a well made red sauternes. The only criticism I could possibly render is that the strong plasticine nose doesn’t go at all with the actual taste of the wine. This is only a 1 on the Kracher scale. I can only imagine what a 10 or a 12 must taste like. We need more sweet red wines like this! Highly recommended.
Quady 2008 Essencia Orange Muscat – (LCBO, Toronto) – This wine is produced by Andrew Quady, a California winemaker who specializes only in dessert wines. It’s a great value and tasty wine that comes with a caveat. It has a high alcohol percentage of 15% via fortification that has a major effect on the wine.
Beautiful floral nose of orange blossom. Medium bodied with a bright neon orange color. Lovely taste of orange peel, white grape, honey and a bit of apricot…. Until the alcohol kills it at the end. I can’t believe I’m going to make this complaint but here goes: there is too much alcohol in this wine! It completely overpowers the wine. The two friends I tasted this with felt the same and the only way they could enjoy it was to sip it like a port. Unfortunately, this is not a port.
Look, as wine lovers we all know that sweet wines need both alcohol and acidity to balance them out or it will become cloying, but the reverse is also true: alcohol needs sweetness and acidity in balance or else you’re just drinking fire water. Even martini lovers need a twist of lemon peel and/or olives in their vodka.
I wrote to Quady regarding this and received a nice reply from none other than Andrew Quady himself. He informed me that the wine is in fact fortified to reach the high alcohol level to stop the fermentation and that it is harvested at just 25o Brix. He recommended that if I found the alcohol level too high to enjoy the wine over ice or in a spritzer.
He also told me I might enjoy his best-selling Electra wine, which is really just a non-fortified version of his Essencia that tops out at 4-5% alcohol, making it more along the lines of a or Moscato D’Asti wine. This wine apparently sells in equal volumes to the fortified Essencia so that clearly indicates there are many others who feel the way I do. Not only that, but he created his Red Electra (a red wine version of the Electra) based solely on customer demand. I don’t see anyone demanding a red wine version of Essencia so that should tell you something.
Then again, obviously an equal percentage enjoy the high-alcohol version as it sells well, so I guess it’s a matter of your own personal tastes. I give it a pass but if you don’t mind the alcohol level, you will likely enjoy this one.