Husch Late Harvest Gewurztraminer (375ML half-bottle) 2013
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California dessert wines are rarely as harmonious as this accomplished gewurztraminer from Anderson Valley, the gloriously ripe fruit harvested in late October after the onset of botrytis. It’s sunny and luscious, with saffron and roasted apricot flavors that are as mouthwatering as they are sweet. The best thing about this wine is its silkiness, the sugar and acidity gently infusing the senses rather than assaulting them. Serve this after dinner with a plate of nuts and aged goat cheeses.
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In 1979, Hugo Oswald Jr. bought the 6,000 case Husch Winery from the Husch family. The Oswald family had been growing pears in the Santa Clara Valley, but when the area was expanding they sold the land and headed for the southern tip of Mendocino County in the Ukiah valley. The Oswald family combined the vineyards on their La Ribera Ranch in Talmage with their newly expanding vineyards in the Anderson Valley. This union produced a total growing area of about 200 acres. Today Husch Vineyards is still owned and operated by the Oswald family. Currently three members of the family are involved in the winery: Miles, Ken, and Will. Winemaking is under the direction of Fritz Meier, graduate enologist from Geisenheim University in Germany. Al White, now in charge of all viticulture operations, has been with Husch since 1973.
Through the years Husch has modernized and expanded, but it has never lost its initial rustic charm or reputation for great wines.
Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.
Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.
Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.
Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.
Surrounded by redwood forests and often blanketed in chilly, ocean fog, the Anderson Valley is one of California’s most picturesque appellations. During the growing season, moist, cool, late afternoon air flows in from the Pacific Ocean along the Navarro River and over the valley's golden, oak-studded hills. High and low temperatures can vary as much as 40 or 50 degrees within a single day, allowing for slow and gentle ripening of grapes, which will in turn create elegantly balanced wines.
The Anderson Valley is best known for Pinot Noir made in a range of styles from delicate and floral to powerful and concentrated. Chardonnay also shines here, and both varieties are often utilized for the production of some of California’s best traditional method sparkling wines. The region also draws inspiration from Alsace and produces excellent Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris.