Tried this today w/ John:
1. WenteBros Riesling Spatlese (LatePicked grapes from Monterey vnyds; 11%) Livermore 1973: Deep golden/smoewhat murky brown light PX color; beautiful old German Auslese/honeyed/creme brulee slight earthy some botrytis/apricotty/fruit cocktail very complex nose; bit tart/tangy very lush/ripe some sweet (4%-6%?) slight nutty/bitter honeyed/creme brulee very complex old GermanAuslese beautiful flavor; very long/lingering very honeyed/creme brulee/old German Auslese fairly sweet lush/tart/tangy slight earthy/nutty/bitter very complex finish; much like an old German Auslese from '59 or '75 vintages where there was not a lot of botrytis; pretty incredible
$6.75 (vBS)
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And a wee BloodyPulpit:
1. Botrytis: Back in his early days at CrestaBlanca/Livermore; MyronNightengale made an induced botrytis Semillon. He laid out some Semillon bunches of grapes on stacked trays in the wnry, covered them w/ plastic tarps, and sprayed on a water solution containing edelfaule/noble rot. Not sure where he got the mold material from. The wine was supposedly pretty great. About a '58 as I recall.
For many yrs, it was presumed that Calif had too low a humidity for the proliferation of botrytis in the vnyd. In the early '70's, Wente's ArroyoSecco vnyds were just coming on-line, including Riesling. In '72, they made their first Spatlese from late-harvest Riesling. There was presumably a touch of botrytis. They repeated it in '73...this very wine. In '74, they made an Auslese. Presumably they recognized, by then, they were dealing w/ botrytis/edelfaule.
In '73, ChuckCarpy at FreemarkAbbey was touring their NapaVlly vnyd w/ a German vintner. A block of the Riesling was not harvested in time, so he just abandoned the block to let the grapes rot on the vine. This German vintner got very excited when he saw the grapes and told Chuck that this was edelfaule and he should make a dessert wine from it. Chuck, totally clueless, did so and made the first FreemarkAbbey Edelwein; Calif's first verifiable BA. The next yr or so, he made an EdelWein Gold, Calif's first TBA. And, as they say, the rest is history. Then DickArrowood/ChStJean and WalterShug/Phelps started making these BA/TBA wines (from Riesling and Scheurebe) on a fairly regular basis.
Getting back to Wente: About '83, one of their blocks of Chard in ArroyoSecco got a bad infection of botrytis. But they went ahead and made the wine anyway. A TBA Chardonnay..who the hell wants a sweet Chard?? So they sold it off to CharlieWagner, for a song, and he bttld it under the Caymus label and priced it in the mid-$20's. It was a sensational TBA when I last had it some 4-5 yrs ago.
Now you know the rest of the story..at least as recalled by
TomHill