TN: Ch. Vartely Muscat Ice Wine 2011: Move Over Canada!

[John Trombley]

2011 Château Vartely Muscat Ice Wine, Moldovia, Central Region, 10 percent abv, 22 percent residual sugar (220 g/dl label value).
purchased Miami Valley W&S, Tipp City, OH. $25/375 ml; Sorocai Imports, Centerville, OH.

Ran into a Moldovian waiter, Shean, at Stella Trattoria, Traverse City, MI, and, when I saw this a few days later, I bit. Shean's excitement about Moldovian wines seem more in order than the last time I had one of their sweet things:

Coravin Vintage to LeTaster. Relatively light bronze- brown color, with some dark particulates 0.5 mm, spherical. Clearer and lighter in color at 5 days out.

Nose shows some honey, peach, varietal grapiness and a perceptible foxiness, and a touch of ethyl acetate suggested. No evidence of nonbotrytis ice wine fresh air-radish scents. Grapy-honied-slightly foxy, without any volatility detected at 5 days; and a vidal-like tobacco-peach profile like found in some Canadian Ice Wines.

Viscous, sweet but tartness to balance. Relatively neutral, with a hint of sweet-bitter lime/grapefruit, later showing a pleasant emerging juicy-saline midpalate. Marked down a couple points for lack of ice wine typicity and minor or only possible flaws. Good value for pleasurable drinking, but not to introduce a friend to the typical ice wine. The soaring acidity one looks for in Ice Wine is not exactly missing but is at this point buried under sweetness and fruitiness. A powerful, somewhat rustic-tending dessert wine but a good value for its price. 89 RPP/100. Drink now-2022. (66 views)

[Eric Menchen]

Foxiness? Can you explain that one?

[John Trombley]

Eric, I'm sure you know the flavor of labrusca spp. grapes, as distinguished from those of Vitis vinifera. A substance called methyl anthranylate gives the former a flavor almost exactly like concord grape jelly or Mogen David wine. While a flavor we're used to in such circumstances, it may not be pleasant to those who have their palate tuned to European varieties. I believe that small amounts of this anthranylate or similar-flavored substance may be produced by V. vinifera grapes as well, as sometimes I can detect a similar note, as I could in this one.

[Eric Menchen]

Eric, I'm sure you know the flavor of labrusca spp. grapes, as distinguished from those of Vitis vinifera. ...

That I do, but I had never heard the term foxy to describe it. But lo and behold:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitis_labrusca

Vitis labrusca, the fox grape ... The term "foxy" became a sort of catchall for the wine tasting descriptors used for these American wines that were distinct from the familiar flavors of the European viniferous wines.

[John Trombley]

Eric, this scent/flavor was actually quite subtle and probably added complexity; not at all like Passover wine. I also detected the same note in a Boundary Breaks (Seneca Lakes) supposedly 100 percent Riesling Ice Wine 2013 a week or so prior that I thought was more of a fault or more detectable. Perhaps my chemo is sensitizing me to certain flavors.

[Eric Menchen]

No worries. I understand the flavor and am not bothered by it at typical levels. Now if it tastes like grape Kool-Aid, that's different. By the way, I found this source which is quite extensive in trying to explain how the term fox came to be associated with the grapes and flavor.
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpresseboo ... nd=ucpress

[Eric Ifune]

Sounds like more of a botrytis styled than pure ice wine.

[John Trombley]

Sounds like more of a botrytis styled than pure ice wine.

Knowing as you do my preferences for 'healthy' Ice Wine versus 'Infected' ice wine, I dare say, Eric. Was just sitting here wondering if I'm going to get a chance to open up a bottle or three of my bucket list wines, such as a 2002 Dönnhoff Brücke Eiswein, a 2001 Rothenberg Gunderloch Trockenbeerenauslese, ANY Krug drunk within its true drinking window, a Valdespino Toneles, an Equipo Navajos #37 Bota N0, perhaps even one of those oh so special 1953 Bordeaux First Growths (lafite and Margaux I tasted from magnum); some 1963 and previous vintages of Porto; a 1967 or 1975 Yquem, and a bottle of red Bourgogne that performs as well as the 1978 Latour that was my first experience with that wine. My prognosis is so variable and mixed that I'd love to spend some of the time I have left having off-lines with friends met in connection with FTLOP and on other off-lines. Sharing a passion for wine is almost the most complete experience of inner transformation with another person; and if you have amends to make for less than stellar living (and who does not?), one of the motivators you can assign yourself to this most difficult of life's responsibilities is to share an appropriate bottle with yourself after it's accomplished. Jackie asked me to choose a bottle for our 25th Anniversary--durn--how do you meet an optimism like that with a steady gaze--and didn't gulp too hard when I came home with a 750 of Marey-Monge Romanee St. Vivant 2006.

[Eric Ifune]

John,
We definitely need to get together again and have some wine!

[John Trombley]

John,
We definitely need to get together again and have some wine!

Ever find yourself in the Midwest?

We'll also probably go south to Florida after our early December wedding and be there for two or three weeks. Or perhaps we'll do a ecology-biology based tour in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, or Pacific waters off Costa Rica.

[Eric Menchen]

a 1968 or 1975 Yquem

I had a bottle of the 1968 a few years ago, and still have one in the cellar. If my first bottle is any indication, this one doesn't need to be on your list. But of course at that age, there are no good years, just good bottles.

[John Trombley]

a 1968 or 1975 Yquem

I had a bottle of the 1968 a few years ago, and still have one in the cellar. If my first bottle is any indication, this one doesn't need to be on your list. But of course at that age, there are no good years, just good bottles.

You caught me in the middle of an edit, Eric. The 1967 was the vintage that I recalled, undoubtedly Let me go back and remove the confusion.

I'm wondering if a bucket-list blog containing the adventures, early as well as late as well as the wines consumed or suggested would be an addition to the literature. Still has me puzzled as to what format the invitation to pursue should take. Don't exactly want to publish the contents of my cellar and make myself a minor-league target for those whose addictions take a different format.

But ... I'm taken with the idea of selecting a single bottle from the participant'[s] cellar[s] that either have delivered or promise to deliver memory stimulation, one of wine's great cultural assets, in the context of food, fellowship, and even a touch of flirtation. Probably relaxed sipping would if anything have a therapeutic effect on those like me whose memory functions might have been adversely affected by a chronic disease.

Any ideas from you or others would be gratefully received!