Caligo: A Family Of Three Noble Desert Wines From Spain

Late autumn in Spain’s Alt Penedes, in the hills outside of Barcelona. The annual harvest that yields the area’s dry red and white wines has past weeks before. Yet there are still white grapes on the vine. They’re beyond ripe.  Morning mists blow in off the sea. A fungus forms on the grapes. It begins to suck the moisture out of the fruit. The grapes appear to be decaying. For the DG Viticultors vineyard and winery, everything is going exactly as they’d hoped.

DG Viticultors produces three white desert wines, or “mist wines,” from these grapes. The late harvest enables the grapes to over-ripen beyond the sweetness levels necessary to make dry wines. The fungus, called botrytis, or “noble rot,” then draws moisture from the grapes, further concentrating their flavor and sweetness. The resulting wine, under the best circumstances, balances sweetness with acidity, and offers pronounced flavors of ripe peach and toasty honey. This centuries-old winemaking process is thought to have originated in Tokaj, in Hungary, and continues today with the celebrated Sauternes wines of France and the Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese wines of Germany.

Caligo: A Family Of Three Noble Desert Wines From Spain | BaseNow.

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