Posts Tagged ‘vintage 2006’

Inniskillin 2006 Riesling Icewine

Monday, 3 January, 2011

Inniskillin 2006 Riesling IcewineInniskillin is a Canadian winery, which makes one of the most acclaimed icewines in the world. These are sweet dessert wines produced from grapes that freeze on the vine late in the harvest season with the first frosts of winter. The freezing removes water and concentrates the sugars, allowing deliciously sweet wines to be made without further processing.

I’ve reviewed one icewine before, and I’ve tried another once at a wine festival in the German town of Bingen, on the Rhine River (boast, moi?). Both were absolutely delicious. So when I saw this bottle of Inniskillin Riesling Icewine in a local bottle shop, I was immediately attracted to it. Alas, the price tag was around $115, for 375 ml. I held out for a couple of visits, while I read up on Inniskillin online. Everything I found said that these were the pinnacle of icewines. And then I got a 20% discount voucher for the bottle shop, and went in one day to pick up some bottles of other things. While there, I asked the guy about the Inniskillin. He said that they were lucky to have that one bottle in stock – they rarely get them in, as the number of bottles imported to Australia is so few. Given that, I took the plunge and grabbed it, not knowing when I might get the chance to acquire a bottle again.

We opened it on New Year’s Eve, after a quiet dinner at home, relaxing into an evening of TV, and had it with a platter of cheeses. The colour is, as you can see from the photo, a rich, dark gold – darker than any other dessert wine I’ve had. The aroma was fresh and vibrant, with oranges the dominant note. It was slightly thick and syrupy. On the tongue it was sweet, with flavours of orange and marmalade, with a touch of acidity to cut into the sweetness, something like lime. It was nicely balanced, but very sweet, and… disappointingly simple. I was expecting layers of complex flavours developing in the mouth, but there wasn’t much of that going on. There was a hint of Riesling minerality underneath it all, and that slight piercing note in the aroma, but the fruit flavour and sweetness were basically straightforward.

M. put it best when she said it reminded her of Noble One, the benchmark Australian dessert wine, a botrytis Semillon by De Bortoli, and one which we’ve had several times. It’s true – it tasted almost exactly like Noble One. The same orange dominance with a bittersweet marmalade finish and lingering taste. While this is very nice (I love Noble One), it wasn’t what I was hoping for in an internationally acclaimed wine that cost nearly 3 times as much.

So… Inniskillin Riesling Icewine. Good, but not that good. Inniskillin also makes icewine from Vidal, Cabernet Franc, and Tempranillo, so I might try one of those at some point (if I can find any).

Tim Adams 2006 Clare Valley Tempranillo

Thursday, 16 September, 2010

Tim Adams 2006 Clare Valley TempranilloThis is the first time I’ve tried a straight Tempranillo. I’ve had it blended, in the Bodegas Faustino from Rioja, and reading that review again, I can recall the common strands of flavour compared with this one.

We took this bottle to an Indian restaurant and had some mild curries and rice with it. It wasn’t a calculated match to the food, but turned out to go together well, in my opinion. The aroma of this wine, from the Clare Valley in South Australia, is intriguing. It smells quite obviously of strawberries, with a sweetness that approaches spun sugar, almost fairy floss (or “cotton candy” for the Americans).

But the taste is not sweet – this is quite a dry wine on the palate. There remains a taste of strawberries, and also cherries. And with them, a spiciness of sweet spices. Cinnamon was the most obvious one, and perhaps a hint of nutmeg. The label on the back of the bottle confirms the red berries and cinnamon, but mentions cloves, which I didn’t really pick up myself. And comparing it to the Rioja, in which I also noticed strawberry and spiciness, I’m now starting to get a picture of the character of Tempranillo. I will have to try another one to cement this into place in my tastebuds and mind. And also because I very much liked it.