The wine of the month
Samos, Vin Doux, 2021
4,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP
September 2022: Samos, Vin Doux, 2021 (7 EUR/7 USD in Sweden; 375 ml), white sweet wine, Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, 4,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP (90 points of 100 points) (11-09-2022 by Nenad Jelisic)
This is the best sweet wine that NJ Wines has so far tasted from Greece. Explosive fruity aroma filled with dried apricots, honey, raisins, vanilla, ripe yellow fruits and white flowers. Big, sweet, fruity and complex flavour filled with dried apricots, honey, raisins, vanilla, ripe yellow fruits, ripe melon and white flowers. Samos Vin Doux 2021 has a really good development potential, at least 20 years i.e. until at least 2042. The aftertaste of the wine is three kilometres long and is both sweet and dry/austere.
Samos Vin Doux 2021 should be enjoyed with grilled goose liver, which is the best combination with the wine, or with fruit salad consisting of orange, white grapes, mango, kiwi and a little of this wine or with tasty moldy cheeses such as Gorgonzola, Roquefort and Stilton or without any food at all, just enjoy its enormous complexity and aroma and flavour richness. It should be drank at 8°C from Riedel Vinum Extreme Rose/Ice wine or Orrefors Difference Sweet or Orrefors Elixir.
The grapes (Muscat blanc à petits grains) for this wine come from vineyards located at up to 900 meters above sea level. The harvest takes place late in the fall. Muscat blanc à petits grains belongs to the muscat family and is considered as the muscat grape that produces wines of the highest quality. It is grown in Asti in Italy, Samos in Greece and in the southern parts of France, among others. The muscat grape belongs to one of the grape varieties that has been cultivated the longest by man and is used, unlike most other grapes, both for winemaking and as table grapes.
The grapes have grown in limestone, weathered limestone and weathered slate. The wine production process is as follows: the grapes are harvested and selected by hand, after the harvest they are delivered to the winery where they are destemmed, crushed and pressed. After the destemming, crushing and pressing process, grape juice is fermented in stainless steel tanks until it has an alcohol strength of 6 to 8%, at which point it is fortified to about 15% with 77% alcohol. The wine is then aged in large oak casks for about a year and then a few months in the bottle before it is released in the market.
