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Grape 15: Moscato Bianco

February 15, 2011 in bubbly, dessert wine, italy, muscat, white wine, wine | 5 comments

Moscato d’Asti is a semi-fizzy dessert wine if wine shops and their 15% off sales on “dessert wines” are to be believed. In my opinion, it barely qualifies as either. The wine is barely fizzy, although it has a few bubbles that sneak to the top of the glass like rogue spies. Perhaps they call it a dessert wine since it’s a sweet wine, and yes, it is sweet. But when I think of dessert wines, I think of high levels of alcohol to kick the night into full gear and well out of second gear. This wine, clocking in at 5.5% alcohol, puts that pre-gaming rush into the pitstop. This should be a pre-dinner wine for chocolate and sweet lovers who are easing into their meal, not the last stop before $1 pizza cravings kick in.

Taste
Even with my gripe on the misnomer, this wine delivers in all kinds of ways. There’s the bit of fizz that’s barely noticeable in the deadly flirty way that hands touch hands in movie theaters, and there’s the taste of moderate, refined flavors. Peach, rose and pear sprout in the nose, then there’s a whole lychee swimming pool that shows up in your mouth and some sage and herbs sprout after the lychee lagoon drains away. None are too overpowering, they’re just really different flavors that somehow pull together into a wine that defines its “dessert wine” label.

Grape
Think of Moscato (or Muscat) as the Abraham of wines. Pretty much all wines started with Abraham and then branched off from there (Ur being Piedmont, apparently) into all kinds of crazy Muscat-type wines. This particular wine is Moscato d’Asti (Muscat from Asti, up in Piedmont), which is made from the grape Moscato Bianco (“White Muscat”). I’m confused myself with all these Muscat names, but looking at the color of this wine (white) and where it’s from (Asti), the names are starting to make sense. Anyway, there are all kinds of wines that come from this Jacob-branch of the family, even other sparkling wines made from Moscato Bianco like Asti Spumante. Plenty of other Muscats exist on the Esau-side of the vini-family tree but it’s best to leave them for another day. Today’s all about Jacob and his Moscato Bianco.

Detail Up!
Moscato d’Asti 2009 Vigna Senza Nome

Random Googles
* “Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains” is French for “Moscato Bianco.” It goes by at least 10 other names, the best of which is “Muskateller.”
* Moscato Bianco is the oldest grape in Piedmont (that hambone chunk in the NW that bumps into France and Switzerland).
* Moscato d’Asti – first made by a wine-loving jeweler in the 1500s. Fact.

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Grapes 13, 14: Xynisteri and Mavro

February 12, 2011 in cyprus, dessert wine, wine | 3 comments

Oldest Wine in the World
Commandaria is a dessert wine from Cyprus that is the world’s oldest wine that you can still drink. At least since the time of Aphrodite, this wine has been inspiring poets with its amber color and high alcohol content (+15%). Crusader legends mention Commandaria as the wine that Richard the Lionhearted pronounced “the wine of kings and the king of wines” (it’s his seal on the red box above). The Ottomans supposedly invaded Cyprus for the sole purpose of capturing Commandaria, the area in Southern Cyprus that makes this wine.

Taste
Opinions vary on what this wine tastes like and tonight, I tried it for the first time and found a bit of hazelhut, some sweetness like dulce de leche and tons of raisin. It’s a strong one too, which is best served in the smallest cup you own. Like a thimble that you keep for tea with micefolk and for drinkers of raisin-like Commandaria.

Grapes
Two grapes in 50/50 doses make the liquid that eventually becomes Commandaria wine, and both grapes hail from Cyprus. Xynisteri and Mavro are the names of the two, and Xynisteri is the white grape in the Commandaria duo, Mavro the ancient red grape that still grows on its original rootstock since phyllorexa never touched Cyprus during its 19th century trouncing of continental Europe.

Making Commandaria
Cypriots produce Commandaria in six basic steps.
1 – Overripen the grapes on the vine.
2 – Put the overripe grapes on your roof and overripen them again (legend has it this is done only to keep the livestock from eating all the grapes on the vine).
3 – age the wine in barrels for at least two years and sometimes for a decades-plus.
4- Take old wine out to bottle and drink.
5 – Replace that old wine with new wine in a solera-type process made famous by sherry producers.
6 – Kvell over your superior Commandaria to anyone who will listen.

Detail Up!
St. John Commandaria Keo – NV

Random Googles
* Commandaria grapes became those used in Port wine according to Cypriot legend.
* Four big acronyms (KEO, ETKO, SODAP and LOEL) dominate the Commandaria export market in Cyprus even as there’s no shortage of little guys.
* At least Xynisteri is used to make non-dessert wines on its own. Cyprus seems to like them, even if the rest of the world hasn’t been paying attention.

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Grape 10: Palomino

February 3, 2011 in dessert wine, sherry, spain | 4 comments

Palomino is one of the three grapes used to make Sherry, a dessert wine from southern Spain that’s known for being nutty. Not a poor pun, it actually tastes like nuts. Palomino is the grape that the Spaniards use when they’re making the less sweet styles of Sherry. Otherwise they go with Ximenez or Moscatel grapes, which produce really sweet dessert wines.

Palo Cortado

Interestingly enough, the sherry that I happened upon has its own frothy, freudian history. “Palo cortado” shown above on that rather blah label means its a wine that started off its aging process as a dry wine but then loses its flor veil (seriously, click that link) and keeps aging as a sweeter style of wine (“From Fino to Oloroso” – Palo Cortado’s memoirs). The result is a wine with the best of both the sweet and the dry. I prefer to think of it as one outstanding gender-bending Spanish citizen. And with the translation of “Palo Cortado” literally meaning “cut stick,” you’d think Freud would have come up with the term “Palo Cortado.” You’d be wrong – it’s an even better story.

Taste

Sherry’s never really been my thing. It’s always been on the more bitter side and nuts are fine and all but give me candied fruit, dried fruit or some kind of big whiff nose, and I’m much happier than if you shove a bowl of peanuts my way. This wine though is causing me to take a second look at Sherry. Why? Cheese, namely Old Amsterdam Gouda, the best thing that Holland has produced since it exported my great-grandparents (modestia a parte). Really, if you have to have one cheese after dinner, this is the cheese you want. Maybe it was the fish for dinner that didn’t fill the gullet. Maybe it was the liquor cabinet bursting with too many random bottles. Maybe it was fate.

This gender-bending Sherry and that udderly divine dutch gouda just destroyed my previous best pairing (pizza and Modern Family) by 5,280 feet. They even did a little dutch spanish dance in my mouth, wooden shoes and bullfighter jabs included. The Gouda provided all kinds of salt and crunchy deposits with a mouth-filling creamy taste. The Sherry added in its own hook-nosed bitterness and cartloads of almonds. So thank you Palo Cortado and Gouda – you just reopened the world of Sherry to one who thought it beyond surprises. Palo Cortado, you rock.

Detail Up!
Lustau Palo Cortado Peninsula Sherry

Random Googles
* Palomino’s really only used for dessert wines – Spain mostly, but South Africa and California too.
* Sherry comes from the Spanish region Xeres (pronounced “hair-ess”) near that Gibralter tip
* As much as I slander sherry, that solera process deserves its cool points.

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