Sunday 30 November 2008

Mogao Ice Wine

Wuwei, China, diam cork seal

Opening a bottle of Chinese wine is always accompanied by a little trepidation, though this is the first time I've tried a Chinese sticky. I couldn't find out much about this wine, but it comes from Wuwei in Gansu province. The only English words on the bottle let slip it's made from Pinot Blanc and Riesling and while there's no vintage date it's stamped with 20070925, so I'm assuming it was bottled on the 25th September 2007.

Mogao Ice Wine is a light straw gold colour. The nose is rather reserved, though there're faint aromas of sweet honey and Dumbledore's favourites, old school sherbet lemons (you know; a little bit of lemon, a little bit of sherbet and a little bit of grandma). Tasting it there are traces of red apple and stone fruit, but the palate really lacks oomph. To be positive the sugar, acidity and alcohol are well balanced creating a drop that's smooth and very drinkable. It's a wine that's in many ways technically pretty good; it just lacks flavour, interest and complexity. Mogao Ice Wine while not inspiring does offer hope for this producer and region.

Visit winery's Chinese language website.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is anyone there?

Please keep going: your blog is interesting and well thought out.

Hope all is okay...
..ahah, the Macao Marathon looms.

John D

Andrew said...

Hey John

Yep still here (just). Should get a few posts out this week. It's been busy times. I've had my brother staying for a month and while I've visited heaps of restaurants I haven't had much of a chance to write about them.

Mate thanks for all your support, it's great to know someones out their reading.

Cheers
Andrew