A weird, weird wine…
Nelson
Unfortunately I do not know what vintage this wine was as it was unlabeled and I forgot to ask. It was one of the most bi-polar sensory experiences I have ever had but was very enjoyable and could go magnificently with an equally eccentric desert or cheese. The nose was one of the most sublime, mineral and lime driven delicate Riesling noses I have ever smelt - truly sublime and could easily be from a top end
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6 comments:
So, by "raisin wine", do they mean that it's literally made from raisins, or from raisin-like dried out grapes due to botrytis, or some sort of Amarone process of sundrying the grapes? Sounds fantastic, whatever it is?
> unavailable for either trade or retail
Aargh, you tease! Any chance of sneaking some in to Citron?
I don't know how I ended up on this page, but anyway years ago I ate at a Hungarian Restaurant and the owner escaped from the Soviet block, and he had a stash of wine made purely from raisins (From Hungary), some of the best stuff I ever tasted.
It was (probably) the famous hungarian wine called Tokaji.
tom, just quietly, raisins are sun dried grapes, so "raisin like dried out grapes" are in fact, raisins
Lapsang Soochong is, so far as I know, a Chinese tea.
It is normally a black tea from Fujian, though I think it can also be made from heavily fermented oolong leaves. It is near exclusively an export product. You cannot find it easily in China.
The smoking process may originate from central Asian tea culture, with Lapsang Soochong being a Chinese tea style developed to cater to the European taste for central Asian style tea. The story goes that tea transported to Europe via the silk road would pick a a smoky flavor en-route - too many nights stored near camp fires. Europeans enjoyed the smokey taste, and so tea merchants started treating their tea to create it deliberately. Russian Caravan is a tea similar to Lapsang Soochong but with a milder smoked flavor. It is supposedly based on this central Asian style tea.
Later, when the sea route to China was opened up, the Europeans sought the smokey flavor from coastal tea merchants in Fujian. The Fujianese did not drink this style of tea but were happy to create their own version. It also let them add value to low grade leaves.
I'm no tea expert, but i think the above is reasonably accurate.
Seamus
You're spot on. When I wrote the article I had been taught erroneously the Lapsang was from Fuji rather than Fujian. Will fix the post in the next few days.
Cheers,
Jules
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