Napa visit - St. Helena area mostly. (Long)

_Leftovers_!!?? I'm sorry, I simply do _not_ understand.

-- Regards,

- Roy

=*=*Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. - Oscar Wilde

Salut/Hi Chuck Reid,

Thanks for your notes. It seems like you had some fun, which is the main thing.

le/on Thu, 27 May 2004 14:16:56 -0400, tu disais/you said:-

Total bill?

(ahem - Lur Saluces)

Well, I didn't go as far as to say that, as I've only tasted a very few Canadian ice wines. What I said was thatthose I've tasted fell far short of the better German eisweins.

I must admit, that notwithstanding the very high prices of eisweins, I _don't_ think they're the summum of German sweet wine production. As a famous french critic once nearly said. "I love Botrytised wines". So I prefer the beerenauslesen in general, though I'd not spit at a trock. In fact, for the most sublime and perfect balance in germanic sweet wines, I think I'd go for an Auslese Mosel from an exceptionally sweet year. ('76 springs to mind, but 2001 and 2003 wouldn't be far behind).

Well Roy, when 3 bottles of it get opened, leftovers are a possibility!

A little over US$ 525.

With my handwriting and at a party yet it's lucky I got that close to correct!!

"Ian Hoare" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Gräfenberg, Rheingau - you were pretty close on that too, Chuck :-)

...

Hi Ian, A Beerenauslese doesn't, imho, imply botrytis..., at least not in modern vinegrowing which seems to be able to reach high Oechsle readings without the desiccating effects of botrytis. I've not tried the '03 wines yet, did not get lyrical with the '01 Ausleses (but Spätlese - wow!) - and the '76 is still unsurpassed in my experience...(we agree on that, I think :-) Anders

Salut/Hi Anders Tørneskog,

le/on Sat, 29 May 2004 09:42:22 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Well, with respect Anders, haven't the grapes have got to be dried one way or another? Either by the effect of sun and wind (passerillage) or by botrytis. Surely you're not saying that "modern winegrowing" is going to reach 125 Oechsle (Specific Gravity 1.125) without it. In fact if I may quote Hans Ambrosi in his "Germany Wine Atlas and Dictionary", his definition is

"Beerenauslese, selected over-ripe grapes with botrytis"

For Eswein, his definition is "grapes picked and pressed when frozen" commenting "a rarity in all classes of prädikatswein"

I think the legal definition only talks about Oechsle (a great mistake, by the way, because it reduces quality to sugar), without specifying how it's reached. That said, I don't think I've ever had a beerenauslese which _didn't_ have the characteristic tastes of botrytis. I've had some experience here in SW France with passerillé wines - Jurançon, Gaillac and Pacherenc de Vic Bilh and considerably more with botrytised ones, and honestly, I do think I'd recognise a non-botrytis wine as such.

"Ian Hoare" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Hi Ian, Ah, well - my copy of Ambrosi (3rd print 1976 :-) says it in German: ..aus überreifen, meist edelfaulen Beeren gekeltert - which I'd translate into "made from overripe grapes, for the most part noble rotted" (Hallo Michael P - would you agree?) My thought was simply that wine making has advanced since 1973 and, among other things, a very careful selection ensures more ripe grapes. One Mosel grower told me last year that the general rise in Oechsle ratings of the last 10-15 years was mostly due to selection, not climate changes, in his opinion. Furthermore, I believe that the lower limit for a Mosel BA is 115 degrees. The question is then: Can an unbotrytised wine reach 115-125 degrees? Would that be sold as a BA? I have certainly had BA's with a strong character of botrytis, but also some with no or very little botrytis. But, of course - I could be 'botrytis insensitive' like I'm with TCA... :-) Anders

Salut/Hi Anders Tørneskog,

Sorry for the delay - sometimes even _I_ have to work (to my great shame).

le/on Sat, 29 May 2004 15:17:24 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Pretty near perfect - I speak enough German - though my understanding of what's meant by that may be slightly different from yours. I'd understand that to mean that (ALL the grapes in a particular picking/batch are individually selected) which is implicit in the title, and that most of the grapes/berries in _any one batch_ are nobly rotted. I don't take it to mean that most _wines_ are made from nobly rotted grapes but some aren't.

Agreed, but I don't think that you can get a normally ripened grape with anything LIKE that level of sugar.

As above.

That's perfectly possible. Global warming is indisputable - depite George Dubya's catastrophic (in world terms) refusal to honour the previous administration's commitments to the Kyoto agreement and refusal to admit its existance. What is absolutely impossible to predict at the moment, and chaos theory implies that it will remain so, is the effect of global warming on the climate in any one part of the globe. If, for example, the gulf stream were diverted 500 miles to the North in the North Atlantic, the whole of the UK except Scotland could start to experience the sort of climatic conditions experienced in Norway, and vice versa, possibly.

Possible, I've not checked up.

Yes, but only if it's passerillé (air/sun dried), IMO.

Were they Rieslings? I've had Beerenauslesen from other grape varieties where the characteristics of noble rot were quite masked under the characteristics of the grape.

Of course, Ian, but they taste completely different. What Anders wanted to say is that buying a botlle of Beerenauslese does not

This is what the German wine law says in its § 20, sec. 5 num. 3:

| Bei der Beerenauslese dürfen nur edelfaule oder wenigstens | überreife Beeren verwendet werden.

There is a slight nuance compared to the legal definition of a trockenbeerenauslese (num. 4):

| Bei der Trockenbeerenauslese dürfen nur weitgehend | eingeschrumpfte edelfaule Beeren verwendet werden; ist wegen | besonderer Sorteneigenschaft oder besonderer Witterung | ausnahmsweise keine Edelfäule eingetreten, genügt auch Überreife | der eingeschrumpften Beeren.

So the definition of a TBA defines the use of shrivelled non-botrytis grapes as the exception, while no such passus exists in the BA definition.

M.

Salut/Hi Michael Pronay,

le/on 30 May 2004 16:39:56 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Which indeed I said :-

||cteristic tastes of botrytis. I've had some ||experience here in SW France with passerillé wines - Jurançon, Gaillac and ||Pacherenc de Vic Bilh and considerably more with botrytised ones, and ||honestly, I do think I'd recognise a non-botrytis wine as such.

without being

If you say, so Michael, though as I said, I don't think I've had one, hence my comment that I would prefer a Beerenauslese over an eiswein, because (in my experience) there is a greater botrytised character.