Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Honeywood - Mulller Thurgau

May 20, 2008 means election day here in Oregon.

As I watched the Kentucky and Oregon results, I decided it was important for me to enjoy some wine to either ease my pain, or assist with the celebrating based on how candidates performed. Now, you may recall I wrote about Honeywood Winery a couple of weeks ago. In that time, I, mostly with the help of Aileen, have consumed the other two bottles I purchased while there - without being a true blogger and writing about them. Tonight I knew I had to remedy that and make sure I wrote about this Muller Thurgau.

When we were at Honeywood, Stan, the salesman/proprietor who chatted and gave us our tasting, and I spoke about Muller Thurgau wine as Aileen and her friends were unfamiliar with it. While not bad wines, a Muller Thurgau is a wine that just is. The noses may vary, the coats and the clarity may waver slightly, but you are just not going to find a Muller Thurgau that will differ too much from another. Nor will you generally come across a Muller Thurgau that you find tastes amazing or any of those other adjectives that people use to describe something overly desirable. This one from Honeywood is no different.

According to the Honeywood website, their Muller Thurgau is a "distinctive dry white wine with a hint of muscat aroma, finished in a traditional European wine style...Flavorful, spicy and complex food demand a wine that is refreshing and uncomplicated." The nose on this wine is one that might deceive the drinker. There is a sweetness that you perceive might occur based solely on the nose, but it isn't a heavily sweet scent, rather a light one with a mixture of grapes and pears.

When you take a sip, your tongue and taste buds wonder and battle each other a little bit for who will win - the spices or the sweet, and it ends up being a draw, almost. Initially, you feel this spiciness which feels good on the palate. After you swallow, there is a light sweet aftertaste that makes you wonder what you just drank. (After a glass or two, that slight sweet aftertaste almost goes away, but not completely.) But it isn't over yet. Just a second after the sweet aftertaste comes, once more, the spices - they are not heavy, but just ever so lightly.

I need to be clear - this tasting battle that occurs does not mean that this is a wine that is going to be "complicated," because Muller Thurgau is not - it is a simple wine. It is neither a great wine, nor is it a bad wine, it just is, and that's completely okay.

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