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Whitley
ON WINE
HITTING THE SWEET SPOT
here is a widely quoted statis- Dolce imitates the Sauternes and Barsac
tic that about 75 percent of all blend of sauvignon blanc and Semillon,
Champagne consumption in the but does not strive for botrytis, preferring
United States occurs in the final a late-harvest style that is much more pre-
Ttwo months of the year, over the dictable from vintage to vintage. Dolce is
prolonged holiday season. America's finest dessert wine. The 2009
Dolce in 375-milliliter bottle retails for
But there is one other category of wine $85.
that is even more of a holiday novelty:
dessert wine. Dolce is rivaled in quality and intensity by
the beautiful Icewine of Inniskillin, pro-
Americans don't give premium dessert duced from frozen grapes grown in the
wines, aka stickies, much love or respect Niagara Peninsula of Ontario, Canada.
until the season of elaborate feasts are The process of making wine from frozen
upon us. The good news for those who grapes originated in Germany but has
produce top-notch dessert wines is that become a specialty of the Canadian wine
the sweet spot for stickies is just around industry. Allowing the grapes to freeze be-
the corner. fore picking dehydrates the fruit and con-
centrates the sugars and flavors.
With that in mind, I can confidently rec-
ommend three of North America's finest Inniskillin's 2013 Vidal Icewine in
dessert wines, including an unusual stick- 375-milliliter bottle retails for $55 a bot-
ie from Virginia. That would be the Barbo- tle. The Inniskillin 2013 Gold Vidal Icew-
ursville Vineyards Paxxito, a passito-style ine is a hefty $85 for a 375-milliliter bottle.
dessert wine made from the moscato ot-
tonel and vidal grapes. What these three stickies have in com-
mon besides impressive concentration
The passito method, which involves dry- and sweetness is exquisite balance, each
ing the harvested grapes on specially with enough acidity to keep the wines
designed racks, is common in Italy but fresh and prevent them from developing
almost unheard of in the United States. the cloying character that puts many wine
The process of drying the grapes concen- enthusiasts off sweet wines.
trates the sugars and produces remark-
ably intense aromas and flavors. The 2010 Robert Whitley is publisher and manag-
Barboursville Paxxito retails for $32 for ing partner of Wine Review Online, au-
a 375-milliliter bottle and is worth every thor of “Wine Talk,” a column syndicated
penny. This is a wine that can be cellared nationally by the Creators Syndicate, a
for decades. monthly contributor to the Reuters “Vine
Talk” column, host of an online radio show
Dolce is America's answer to the fabled ‘Whitley On Wine’, and director of the fol-
dessert wines of France's Sauternes and lowing international wine competitions:
Barsac regions, areas of Bordeaux that Critics Challenge, Sommelier Challenge,
routinely produce the botrytis mold, or Winemaker Challenge and San Diego In-
"noble rot," that concentrates the sugars ternational. (www.CriticsChallenge.com,
and gives Sauternes and Barsac their dis- www.SommelierChallenge.com, www.
tinctive flavor profile of apricot, peach WinemakerChallenge.com, www.SDIWC.
and honeycomb. com).
76 Wine Dine & Travel 2016
