Dessert Wine. Late Harvest Viognier

Dessert wines concentrate everything I like about normal wines.  They are sweet, syrupy, and dense with flavor.  While I love the fortified wines like port and mediera for their added boozyness, tonight I'm drinking a 2005 late harvest viognier from Epiphany in Los Olivos that rings in at 14.9% abv.

I love the nose on this bottle.  There's a rich apricot and a floral note to go along with sweet honey.  The taste follows the nose with more sweet apricot nectar.  It's thick and concentrated and leaves a nice coating in the mouth.  Minerality is a word I always chuckled at in taste descriptions, but I finally 'got it' drinking a bottle of Reisling recently.  I notice it as a refreshing quality in the drink that makes me think of summer, similar to (high mineral content) mountain spring water. Very fine minerality to this viognier.

Rating: sweet nectar