Tag: Vin Doux Naturel

WSET Diploma

Dita Von Teese: 2011 Jean-Marc Lafage Maury Vin Doux Naturel

Posted on by Josh

Tasting Note:

Eyes: clear, deep ruby, legs
Nose: clean, pronounced intensity, youthful, chocolate, chocolate-covered cherries, black cherry, red fruit, dried fruit, black fruit, earth, mineral, blackberry, RASPBERRY
Mouth: sweet, med body, low fortification, med acid, cherry, raspberry, black cherry, cherry cola, black forest cake, chocolate, pronounced flavour intensity, med+ length
All in all: Very good quality: this fortified wine has an intense and almost archetypal flavour profile. Balanced and concentrated, but could have more complexity. Drink now, not suitable for ageing.

2011 Jean-Marc Lafage Maury Vin Doux NaturelI honestly don’t know much about Dita Von Teese. But she was one of the first things that came to mind when I was trying to come up with something or someone that resembled the fluid and seamless character of this sweet and heady wine, while also having some form of direct intensity.… read more

WSET Diploma

Overly Attached Girlfriend: 2012 Arnoux Trésor du Clocher Muscat de Beaumes de Venise

Posted on by Josh

Tasting Note:

Eyes: clear, pale lemon, legs
Nose: clean, pronounced intensity, youthful, mineral, grapey, floral, orange blossom, stone fruit, peach, ripe apple, pear
Mouth: sweet, med body, low acid, low fortification, med+ flavour intensity, gummy bears, floral, hint bitterness of finish, stone fruit, med length
All in all: Good quality: the wine is a bit cloying, though this is expected. It’s concentrated and intense, though also almost too direct an one-note as a result. Drink now, not suitable for ageing.

2012 Arnoux Trésor du Clocher Muscat de Beaumes de VeniseMuscat is almost so unmistakable that some wines that it makes are sort of like archetypal stock characters. Meme-like, in a sense, hence the whole Overly Attached Girlfriend sort of thing, where this wine literally smells like a bouquet of orange blossoms, fruity perfume, candy, and it also seems to not want to completely release from the back of your palate in a bit of a partially cloying frenzy.… read more

Life · Tasting

2014 Vancouver International Wine Festival – Wine Tour de France Seminar

Posted on by Josh

This year’s wine fest kicked off with me doing the blind tasting challenge on the Wednesday – the rest of my day consisted of lunch with colleagues, errands involving heavy lifting, and then seeing the new Lego movie. I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted, which is an obvious call for trouble: the next day started off with a France-themed tasting at 9:30AM; the big, busy, and irritating trade tasting at 2:30PM; and an exciting Bourgogne-themed tasting at 5PM. A day full of constant mouth stimuli.

Since this was one of the trade tastings (opposed to a consumer one), there were lots of familiar faces. But I shamelessly admit that any human interaction is personally difficult and gruelling before 11AM (or maybe I’m just a naturally horrible human being), and so I sat down on one of the seats, smiled at the 12 glasses in front of me, got my notebook ready, and did my best not to spill anything.… read more

Quaffing

nine bottles for six bodies

Posted on by Josh

Yeah – part of my job is that I get to taste a lot of wines. It’s really helping with stressful midterm season, and my co-workers and I decided to taste some stuff at one of our houses (Thanks! I’m sure we annoyed your neighbours oops). Unfortunately one of us was sick and couldn’t make it, which really sucks because we tasted some pretty cool things, but I guess more wine for us OH WELL.

Also, we all had these blind with the exception for the last one, which is always fun. I’m glad everyone waited for a co-worker and I to close and travel to the place – I’m sure everyone was itching to open the first bottle, which was delish.… read more