Tasting Note: 2003 Chateau Piada - Sauternes-Bordeaux

Below is a quick tasting note from a Sauternes I recently had with my friends Brian and Lisa while we were attempting to podcast (more on that soon).

I don’t know much about Chateau Piada except that they are in Sauternes and that Sherry Lehmann has the 2003 vintage on sale for $15 a half bottle.

It’s a light gold color with a honeyed nose. It’s really the essence of honey more than anything else with some floral notes intermingled in. It’s really honeysuckle when I think about it which makes is somewhat distinctive from the more deliberate honeyed Sauternes and other dessert wines I’ve had in the past.

It’s definitely mouth coating, not unlike syrup but not necessarily in a bad way. It also has just a touch of acidity to cut through that.

This is not a great wine by any stretch but as far as $15 Sauternes go (when it seems the median price is more like $40 a half bottle), I would feel comfortable bringing this to a dinner or dessert party. B-

2004 Standing Store Vidal Ice (Finger Lakes)

Standing Stone, a winery in the Finger Lakes region of New York offers one of the best values in dessert wines with their Vidal Ice. The wine is made from vidal blanc grapes and rather than letting the grapes freeze on the vine as would be required with a true “ice wine”, they pick the grapes after the leaves have dropped from the vines and then they commercially freeze them just before the crush. The resulting wine is full of sweet nectar fruit such as apricots and nectarines with a honey nose and zing. This is a really mouthwatering wine that doesn’t have the cloying finish of many other dessert wines. It consistently earns a 90 score from Wine Spectator. Alcohol level is approximately 12% with 21% of residual sugar.

Vintage New York in the city carries the wine for $27 at both their Soho and Upper West side stores. It can also be bought directly from the Standing Store website for $25 or at the winery. One nice thing about the Standing Stone website is that they list where in New York State you can wine their wines at either retail stores or in restaurants.
Finally, while researching this wine, I came across a podcast from The Wine Scout where Patricia, the woman behind the site, interviews Marti Macinski, the owner of Standing Store. It’s worth a listen and the site itself is worth checking out.