DRINK

Champagne is awesome and has its place. But it’s not the answer for the romantic days of February.

The correct answer, for those of you playing along, is sweet wines – wines that are normally considered dessert wines. Sweet wines don’t have to be gross, they just have to be well-made by someone who knows what they’re do­ing with this style of wine. To that end, we’re very fortunate to have a producer right in our own backyard that produces some of the best in the country.

First let’s talk about what makes a wine sweet. Sugar. That was easy wasn’t it? To simplify things in order to produce classic dry wine, winemakers let the yeast eat all of the sugar, which converts the sugars into alcohol. The yeasts have an orgy and literally eat themselves to death. To produce a sweet wine, the fermentation is stopped, leaving a whole lot of sugar in the wine.

The real trick as a consumer is to find sweet wines that possess balance. That balance is acid, which adds a vibrancy and freshness to the wine.

There are a lot of sweet wines out there that don’t have good balance and are always disappointing, cloying and un­pleasant. What you’re looking for is a sweet wine that doesn’t resemble pancake syrup. Higher acids in a sweet wine lift the “mouth feel” you experience, lending lightness to an other­wise heavy and viscous liquid.

I am a big fan of Botrytis (boh-TRY-tiss) cinerea, or “no­ble rot” style wines. The grapes become “infected” and cov­ered with botrytis mold, but only in certain vineyards with the right conditions. The botrytis lends flavors of honey, caramel and apricots to the juice that makes for a really delicious and unique wine. Ice wine on the other hand tastes of ultra con­centrated grape juice – very pure and intensely concentrated.

I spoke with Gilles Nicault, head winemaker of Long Shadows Wineries about his two winery-only dessert wines (you can find them in some specialty wine shops but it’s eas­ier to drive to the winery) which are some of the finest made in America. The Poet’s Leap Botrytis Riesling and the Poet’s Leap Ice Wine are fantastic examples of both these styles and well worth the trip to western Walla Walla.

“When I make the ice wine it is always a labor of love,” Nicault said. “The conditions are not always right every year. The freeze that needs to happen at just the right time is not guaranteed and even when it happens it may not be enough – sometimes the brix are not high enough from the growing season. When I gamble on planning to make an ice wine – it is tricky. You can lose all the grapes that were meant to go into ice wine if the freeze doesn’t come just right.”

Here are two Long Shadows Winery stars that are avail­able at the winery right now:

The 2010 Poet’s Leap Botrytis Riesling is an intensely layered wine rife with apricots and honey flavors swirling around with just a hint of orange peel and anise that lingers on the palate for a long, long time. This wine works really well with smoked pork, chicken and rabbit!

The 2009 Poet’s Leap Ice Wine possesses an amazing bouquet of quince and toffee. This wine is incredibly concen­trated in the mouth but possesses those lively acids to lend a lift to this thick treat. Salted caramel and pineapple come through in spades in the fin­ish that seems to stretch to eternity.

For Valentine’s Day this year, liven up your sweet­heart and go outside the box with something unusual by picking up an excellent sweet wine to serve with that romantic dinner you’ve been planning. Here’s a hint: Sweet wines love spice! When planning that romantic dinner, make it a little spicy – like Prawns Diablo, or Madras-style Chicken Curry. She or he will thank you – I guarantee it! Cheers.