The Essence of Wine: Peaches

Few flavors so fully speak of summer as the delightfully juicy sweetness of peaches. Long prized for their sensuous skin and delicate flavors, and revered for the vitality shown by blossoms that emerge before the tree has leaves, the fruit was the natural food of Chinese deities for millennia, each bite guaranteeing the gods their continued immortality. Carried back along the Silk Road, peaches later flourished in Persia, where enterprising princes likely first bred the fuzz right off their backs. Peaches, nectarines and apricots, with flavors ranging from delicate rose petal to tangy, almost citrus sweetness, can be evoked by some of the world's most compelling wines. Classically associated with grapes like Viognier and Gewürztraminer, peach and especially apricot flavors can appear in many white wines, especially those that are the product of the fungal magic known as botrytis cinerea. Creeping into vineyards under the cover of fog, botrytis concentrates sugars and often seems to open doors to rooms filled with the yellow-fleshed fruits of summer. Some wines, though, seem to need no encouragement to burst forth with their peachy flavors, as anyone who has ever encountered a Condrieu can attest. No matter how some wines end up tasting of peaches, there's little denying that they offer a measure of the same pleasure on the palate, which for many is simply pure gold.

Domaine Yves Cuilleron "Les Chaillets" Condrieu, Rhone Valley, France
Giaconda "Aeolia" Roussanne, Beechworth, Victoria, Australia
Jorian Hill Viognier, Santa Ynez Valley, Santa Barbara, California, USA
Donelan "Venus" White Blend, Sonoma County, California, USA
Domaine Skouras "Viognier Eclectique" Viognier, Peloponnese, Greece
Hugel "Hugel" Gewürztraminer, Alsace, France
Chateau Lafaurie-Peyrauguey White Blend, Sauternes, Bordeaux, France
Chateau Dereszla "Aszú 5 Puttonyos" Furmint, Tokaj-Hegyalja, Hungary
Bodegas Colome Torrontes Valle Calchaqui, Salta, Argentina
Heidi Schröck "Ruster Ausbruch Auf den Flügeln der Morgenröte" White Blend, Rust, Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, Burgenland, Austria
Sauska "Cuvee 113" White Blend, Tokaj-Hegyalja, Hungary

This is part of an ongoing series of original images and prose called The Essence of Wine

Posted by: Alder on July 18, 2012 10:06 PM: Tweet; Share this post elsewhere: Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: The Essence of Wine

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Comments (1)

King Krak, I Drink it Orange wrote:

07.19.12 at 11:53 AM

Did someone think Peach Cocktail? If yes, the wine for you is Movia Veliko Bianco...I doubt there is a wine that tastes more of a peach than this. (Let's say, btw, the 2000s vintages.)