Ruster Ausbruch

Although this is specially bottled for the famous London department store, Fortnum and Mason, this is a half bottle of the equally famous Ruster Ausbruch made by Feiler-Artinger. Rust is a town bordering Neusiedlersee which I had mentioned in the blog entry on Austrian eisweins, together with Feiler-Artinger. Ausbruch is one of those Pradikats which the Austrians have but the Germans do not. Originally designating the method by which grapes severely affected by Botrytis are mixed with less concentrated must to speed up fermentation (in the manner of Tokaji Azsu wines), Ausbruch has now come to denote a Pradikat level between Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese.

The town of Rust has been famous for its Ausbruch wine since the 16th century and became a Royal Free Town in 1681 for supplying 500 buckets of sweet wine to the Emperor Leopold I. The traditional cepage is a blend of Furmint and Muskateller, but Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Neuburger, Traminer and Welschriesling are used as well. These wines are incredibly long-lived, maybe up to half a century or more. Showing well for the initial 2 years, the wines closed down in the 3rd year for a year or so, opening up after that with more fruit and complexity and being more rounded and integrated, remaining in this wonderful balance for some 15 years or so. That means I can drink the above bottle any time now till around 2027. Jolly good!

Terrantez Madeira

This is a bottle of 1977 vintage Madeira, made from Terrantez, which I bought in England. The grape known as Terrantez in Madeira is more widely known as Folgasao and is a low yielding but high quality grape. Although the grape is fast disappearing from Madeira, it is fondly remembered for the quality of its wines. Talking to Cristiano van Zeller, he told me his favourite Madeira was Terrantez. The 1795 was one of those great historical vintages which produced a lot of long-lived Terrantez wines, many still surviving to this day. They number amongst some of the oldest surviving wines on earth.

A raisined Riesling dessert wine from New Zealand

This is a dessert wine made from raisined Riesling grapes and it comes from New Zealand. It is an unconventional introduction, but although I have blogged about Vin santo and PX wines, there is hardly mention of the fact the grapes are dried before vinification. There are many different types of raisined grape wines, most of which are sweet. The exception to the rule is Amarone which needs another tidbit.
This is quite a nice wine and it's been well appreciated by the judges at the Decanted Awards as the stickers show. The wine was a golden tea colour with a sweet luscious nose. What was a little surprising was that there were notes normally associated with botrytis infection, which should not be present in raisined wines. It was sweet and luscious on the palate, with notes of dried apricot and its acidity appearing just before swallowing, and which linger onto a long balanced finished. Nice!