Advent Wine Badagoni Alazani Valley Semi-Sweet
To be honest, this wine did not come out of my boxes ‘o Advent wine. I happened to be at a friend’s for dinner and she served this with dessert. But I thought, why not include it? I did after all drink it during Advent. So that counts.
Georgian wine has a growing popularity in Turkey. However, so far what we get here are European-style wines (i.e. not qvevri aged or skin contact) from the larger, factory wineries. And while Badagoni fits into that large-format category, their wine is not available in Turkey. This I think she got in the UK of all places – which apparently imports a huge amount of Georgian wine.
But still. I love a sweet wine so pour away!
Badagoni Alazani Valley Semi-Sweet, 2017
I’m trying to remember the last sweet (or even semi-sweet) wine I had from Georgia. I cannot put my finger on which grape was used. What interested me about this was that it was made with Rkatsiteli. Sure it might be the most ubiquitous white grape in Georgia but without the skin contact or qvevri I find Rkatsiteli wines to have quite a neutral character. So much so you can’t really even call it a personality. Sadly, as a sweet wine, it still doesn’t have much of one. At least not in this example.
Appearance: pale, pale lemon
Alcohol: 11.5% abv
Nose: Very shy and delicate. Hints of orange blossom, white rose, musk, and melon. But only hints.
Palate: Similar to the nose, the palate profile was as pale as the color of the wine in the glass. My friend who served it likened the wine to “sweet water.” Ouch. The wine had a touch of flavor, was very light on the tongue with medium (-) acidity and not a whole lot more to recommend it.