Dark amber brown. A wine that smells like an old stone chapel. Church pews, flagstones, the faint scent of incense,...
Dark amber brown. A wine that smells like an old stone chapel. Church pews, flagstones, the faint scent of incense, dried lavender. Oolong tea. It's breathtaking. Dizzying complexity. The sweetness has susurrated into the acidity and there is no way of tracing which is which, but they move through the wine like a cartographer's pen, drawing contours of the past from memory. For a second it reminds me of sherry, dust and dried orange peel, gingerbread and muscovado. Then, suddenly, an arpeggio of sweet orange, clementine, lime, and the wine shakes the dust from its shoes and starts to tango, shimmying with reckless, vivid, wild and wonderful life. And then it slows; roses, a drift of rose petals, quince roasted to deep sunset red; anise and clove and ginger, paprika, cinnamon, drifting whispers of spice through every pause and space. It's impossible to find words that capture the mind-blowing freshness, the exquisitely intricate complexity, the intense concentration and yet ethereal weightlessness, the haunting sense of poignancy. It brought tears to my eyes.
