Full Review

Apple Barn Winery

Apple Barn Winery
NV Blueberry Dessert, American

Pair this wine with:
Cheese

Category: Fortified Wine

Date Tasted:
Country: USA
Alcohol: 17.5% RS: 8%
Not Recommended
$28

Apple Barn Winery
NV Blueberry Dessert, American

Pair this wine with:
Cheese

Category: Fortified Wine

Date Tasted:
Country: USA
Alcohol: 17.5% RS: 8%
Garnet color. Unusual aromas and flavors of dusty berry basket, old berry yogurt, and nail polish with a soft, crisp, moderately sweet light body and a hot, somewhat odd, fleeting finish with notes of overripe blueberry, medicinal cough syrup, nettles, and pepper and brandy with chalky, hard, woody, drying tannins. A hot and lactic fortified wine with intense bitterness and tannins.

Tasting Info

Wine Glass Style: Funky
Aroma Aroma: dusty berry basket, old berry yogurt, and nail polish
Taste Flavor: Same as aromas with notes of overripe blueberry, medicinal cough syrup, nettles, and pepper and brandy
Sweetness Sweetness: Moderately Sweet
Enjoy Enjoy: Not Enjoyable
Recipes Pairing: Blue Cheese, Gorgonzola, Roquefort
Bottom Line Bottom Line: A hot and lactic fortified wine with intense bitterness and tannins.

The Producer

Apple Barn Winery

The Producer

Fortified Wine

Wine Glass Dessert.jpg
Serve in a Copita
Fortified wines, those inevitable after-dinner elixirs, have been a part of the American wine industry since its inception. The early American taste for fortified wines was well documented, as the signing of the Declaration of Independence was toasted with a round of Madeira. It, along with port and sherry, was the preferred drink of the Eastern aristocracy well into our own century. That the native industry should strive to compete for this market was only natural.

As in much of the wine-producing New World, vintners took a run at sherry (and do to this day), but the results on the whole pale, often quite literally, when compared to the Spanish original. Port, however, has fared beter. While the climate and soil of Jerez has not been duplicated elsewhere, the broiling heat and winemaking practices of the Douro have proven much easier to replicate--perhaps nowhere more so than in California's Amador County and San Joaquin Valley.

Port-style wines are being made beyond California. As might be expected, a certain measure of heat helps; the most successful examples have come from warm states such as Missouri. As the saying goes, a little residual sugar can cover a multitude of sins, but the Missouri ports of producers such as Stone Hill and Mount Pleasant truly stand on their own, and have proven as consistently competent as many California versions.

Fortified refers to wines that have additional alcohol as the result of neutral spirits being added. The most common fortified wines are port and sherry, in which the alcoholic level is between 17% to 20%, higher than a standard table wine of about 13% -14.5%

Additional alcohol technically means these wines can age longer, but that period also depends on the type of wine produced, as some ports and sherries are rather light and need to be enjoyed within a few years of their release.

Given the higher percentage of alcohol, pairing these wines can be tricky, as they could overwhelm milder dishes. For port, rich cheeses, especially blue, are fine, as are walnuts. For a dry sherry, a tomato or cream soup would be an excellent match, while for a sweeter sherry, an almond tart or a simple pound cake with honey would be an excellent match. Otherwise, enjoy these wines on their own.

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