by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

The kick-off event for our 2002 Hospice du Rhone tour was a tasting of botrytised dessert wines, organized at the suggestion of Bernie Roth. Some months before, I had received a certain amount of flack over my InterNet posting on the ThumbsUp Riesling as being one of the better Calif Sauternes I'd had.  The response was that a Riesling that tasted like a Sauternes was nothing a winemaker should be proud of. My contention was that botrytis tends to destroy the varietal character in a wine,  especially at the higher levels. That is, with high level of botrytis, you can't tell a Riesling from a Semillon from a GWT from a Chardonnay. My contention was NOT that with high levels of botrytis, that the wines wern't different; just that it's not obvious what variety the wine comes from. This claim met with a great deal of derision from certain quarters. So Bernie proposed a blind tasting to prove me wrong. He failed. None of us did a particularly good job of identifying the varietal character in these wines. Bernie probably did better than the rest, but little better than he would have done from mere blind/dumb luck. He'd have done better to resort to that technique several yrs earlier when he was severly trounced by yours truly at the IronWino Challenge in Pasadena. Each participant provided one or two botrytis wines. The tasting was held a Larry&Laura Archibald's Santa Barbara digs. Also in attendance to the above mention culprits was Howard&Rhoda Sherry, Jeff Pfohl and Shirin LeClere, and Bernie's far-better-half, Sam. The wines were served blind, in decanters, and randomized by Laura.

The wines, in the order served:

1. Alban Vineyards Rotten Luck Roussanne 1998: Med.gold color; lovely/fragrant botrytis/peachy some petrol bit perfumed talc loads of botrytis nose; tart bit metallic light botrytis/peachy loads of ripe fruit/grapey slight earthy fairly sweet bit austere flavor. I identified it as a botrytis  Riesling, Bernie spotted it as an Arajuo Cabernet '00.
2. Swanson Late Harvest Semillon (14.5%; RS: 11.2%) 1995: Med.light gold color; very strong lovely/ fragrant/grapey bit volatile some toasted/toasted coconut/petrol some botrytis/peachy/cotton candy nose; very/very sweet some botrytis/peachy/candied/grapey bit hot/volatile rather toasty/ toasted coconut flavor; very long/lingering bit hot toasted coconut some botrytis/peachy finish. I identified this wine has a botrytis Moldavian Vermentino, Bernie spotted it as a Dow Sparkling Vintage Port '27.
3. Santa Barbara Winery SantaYnez Valley Late Harvest SauvignonBlanc (SaH: 42Brix) 1993: Dark gold some browning  color; bit pickle juice dusty/earthy eccentric/complex angel food cake little botrytis nose; very sweet/caramelized dusty/earthy/rotted apple complex angel food cake strage bit hot flavor; rather weird wine that has not developed well. I identified it as my PepperwoodSprings Chard, Bernie spotted it as a Lafite '13.
4. Baumard LeVert de L'Or (12%; RS: 6%) 1999: Pale yellow color; fragrant little botrytis rather SGN- like/grapey/very ripe loads of fruit nose; sweet cotton candy intense grapey/candied little botrytis mostly late harvest flavor. I identified it as an Alsatian SGN Riesling, Bernie spotted it as a Morrocan Pinot Noir '57.
5. Marcel Deiss Schoenenberg SGN Riesling (13%) 1994: Pale yellow/gold color; some perfumed talc/ cheap German bit light/simple slight botrytis bit petrol nose; slightly sweet tart/metallic cheap German/grapey/Liebfraumilch slight botrytis/peachy flavor; disappointing for a Deiss SGN; lots of cheap German Riesling character. I identified it as an inexpensive/Southern German wine, Bernie spotted it as an Alaskan Yak's Milk Botrytis wine '88, a good year for yak's milk up on the tundra.
6. PepperwoodSprings Botrytis Chardonnay (11%; RS: 11%) 1983: Dark gold/brown color; very intense botrytis/peachy/apricotty some complex nose; fairly sweet very intense/botrytis/apricotty/peachy bit caramelized/creme brulee complex flavor; despite the browning, no signs of oxidation and still a delight to drink. I identified it as a Calif TBA Riesling, Bernie spotted it as an Ontario Noveau Vidal '01.
7. Baumard Quarts de Chaume 1996: Med.dark color; very intense fruit/pineapple bit earthy lods of ripe/fragrant no botrytis nose; very intense honeyed/loads of intense floral fruit some light botrytis/peach flavor; incredible intense/lingering/mouthfilling loads of intense/floral/fruit finish; in incredible concentrated/sweet/loads of fruit wine. I identified it as a Loire Chenin Blanc; Bernie spotted it as a SutterHome WhiteZin '72, their very first one, assuming it to be from the TomHill archives because it was soooooo good.
8. Weingut Knoll Loibner Gruner Veltliner TBA (11.5%) 1998: Med.gold color; vary Sauternes-like spicy  almost black-pepper bit oaked some botrytis/peachy rather complex very fragrant nose; soft very intense fruit spicy/black pepper slightly bitter bit oaked fairly sweet flavor. Very interesting unusual dessert wine. I identified it as a lesser Sauternes or Ste.Croix du Mont, Bernie spotted it as an Amana Colonies Iowa Ruhbarb Port '94.
9. Navarro ClusterSelect Late Harvest Johannisberg Riesling (10.0%) 1997: Med.dark gold color; slight volatile intense peachy/botrytis/apricotty bit rotted apples/overripe fragrant/complex nose; very sweet peachy/botrytis/apricotty some raisened/rotted apples rather overripe/grapey some complex flavor; very long/lingering some apricotty/botrytis very ripe grapey finish; showing some  complexity & development already. I identified it as my Baumard Verdellho, Bernie spotted it as a Turkish Pinot Noir VinGris '83.
10. Beringer SpecialSelect Late Harvest JohannisbergRiesling (48Brix; 8.6%) 1997: Very dark gold/brown color; slight volatile very intense botrytis/peachy/apricotty spicy/peppery very perfumed some caramel nose; very/very sweet intense botrytis/peachy/apricotty slight oxidized/raisened/aged some caramel/toasted marshmallow complex flavor; very long slight aged/oxidized very intense botrytis/ peachy bit caramelized finish; still tasting great; loads & loads of botrytis but seems to be moving right along. I identified it as a Navarro TBA (after all, Howard&Rhoda were here... a Navarro was a given!!); Bernie spotted it as a Florida Tangerine Chinato '33.

1. Baumard: The Vert de L'Or I brought was, in fact, made from a small plot of Verdellho that Baumard had identified in the middle of one of his Quart de Chaume vnyds. Apparently, there was a fair amount of Verdellho planted in the Loire at the turn of the centure, but had pretty much been all grubbed up. Since Verdellho is not a legal Loire variety, the wine cannot be identified as coming from the Loire. But the Baumard name on the label is a bit of a give-away. Pretty esoteric wine. The Quarts de Chaume was probably the top wine of the set. Incredible concentration, killer  stuff w/ a long life ahead of it.
2. Some of the wines were identified ahead of time by their bearers, but we didn't know where they were in the lineup. I was expecting the PepperwoodSprings Chard to stick out like a sore thumb and be weird & vegetal. It was, in fact, in great shape. Having had the Navarro several times, I thought  I'd be able to pick it out easily. I didn't. The Deiss SGN was rather disappointing; I was  expecting great things from it. 
3. This was a pretty terrific tasting; dessert wines usually are. By limiting it to 10 wines we pretty well managed to avoid palate fatigue, a problem w/ many of these dessert wine tastings.  Obviously, Bernie didn't do so hot on identifying these wines. Happens when you send a kid to do  a man's job. He whimpered that he usually does better at blind tastings when he can see the labels, but I doubt that it'd have helped him today. He knew when he is bested. So he slunk off into the night with the hopes of redeeming hisself at the Citronelle dinner that night. 

TomHill