Undertaking Wine

This was a special bottle for a few reasons.  First, Gewürztraminer is a wine that Melissa and I love alot.  Second, I knew I was going to prepare a desert for our anniversary and I wanted a nice wine to along with it.  Lastly, it was a great price ($16.99) but on sale for $13.99.

Duck Walk Vineyard is located on the South Fork of Long Island.  There are only a few “down that way,” and this is one of the three.  There is now a Duck Walk North to make easier for those who wish to stay away from the Hampton Scene.  However, fear not, now that Labor Day is over, you should make every effort to check out the wonderful vineyards we have on the south fork.

Duck Walk Vineyards, located on Montauk Highway in Water Mill.  It is part of the Pindar family of wines established by Dr. Herodotus “Dan” Damianos in 1994.  It is under the direction of Dr. Dan’s son, Alexander Diamianos.

This wine from Duck Walk is called Aphrodite.  It is a Late Harvest Gewürztraminer prepared in the traditional Ice Wine fashion.  For those of you who are not familiar with how ice wine is prepared here is a quick explanation on Wikipedia.  Basically ice wine, “is a type of dessert wine produced fromgrapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing a more concentrated grape must to be pressed from the frozen grapes, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine. With ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards.

I decided to prepare a desert fondue for my wife on our anniversary.  It consisted of fresh pineapple, apples, strawberries, bananas, peaches and rice krispie treats.  I made a chocolate fondue of white and semi-sweet chocolate.  I was not sure if it would go, but I figured…why not!

On the nose, there was a wonderful peach aroma.  I was getting some honey a little floral fragrance.

In the glass, there was plenty of that typical Gewürztraminer spice which we love.  There was nice honey sweetness to the wine.  I was getting some nice herbal green, grassy flavors.  There was very nice minerality flavor that I was really enjoying.

This is a full body lush wine that has the perfect balance of acid and sugar.

Our desert was wonderful with this wine.  The chocolate fondue went very well with this.  However, when we had the fruit by itself, the wine was really singing and dancing.

My wife said that this would be great with spicy Thai food, and you know she was right.  I could totally see this with any spicy Asian dish.  So the next time you have some King-Po, make sure this is chilled.

I recommend this wine to anyone that is a Gewürztraminer fan, let alone a desert wine fan.  It is very good to serve with desert or before a meal as an apritif.  To quote my wife, “I could have a glass of this every day!”