Very rarely will a wine confound you. But Chacewater’s 15 Year Old Tawny Desert Wine is a marvelous puzzle, one worth sitting with as it unravels your long-held assumptions.
The phrase “Tawny Desert Wine” is the allowed translation for Port wines produced outside of the Douro Valley tradition. Like all aged Ports it suits a relaxed, contemplative setting. A rich bouquet of aged fruit — raisins and figs — and brewed coffee conjures images of soft, worn leather chairs surrounded by antique volumes on dusty shelves.
Yet winemaker Mark Burch’s creation shakes you from this reverie, giving notice even on the nose of its uniqueness. A strong maple scent piques your attention. This is followed up by other unorthodox notes — rustic hints of drying loam and freshly chopped wood redolent of bark alongside bursts of heavy ripe fruit.
On the palate it is even more engaging. Around the hearthstone of dried fruits, dark coffee and cured tobacco leaves swirl unexpected characters. They seem to come and go. Take a sip, you notice one. Let the wine sit for awhile and try again, another emerges. Thinned out maple syrup develops the heartier flavors. A toasted nut sensation lends a curiously mellowed bitter hint, tugging at that inscrutable combination of planed wood and seasoned bark. And then there is a bright citrus, emerging here and there at will, a happy vagabond, unburdened by age.
“It’s crazy,” Burch said, struggling to pin down all the flavors. “There’s more I can say about what it’s not than what it is.”
It’s a wine that captures your attention, that sweeps you away even as you try to deconstruct its soul. The 15 Year Old Tawny is very much a Port — the finish is deep and long, thick with raisins, figs, dates and soothing mocha — but it is a Port with a beatnik edge.
The wine has consumed Burch. He started it while working in the Wildhurst vineyards and set aside two barrels, which Burch purchased when he moved down the road to Chacewater. The grapes came from Upper Lake, the only vineyard in the county growing traditional Port varietals like Tinta Cao, Touriga Nacional and Souzau. He remembers the moment he stepped in to stop fermentation after watching the brix level creep toward his target. At 2:35 a.m. on November 21, 2000, Burch introduced a particularly potent spirit to the barrels.
But he still can’t fully explain the clever layers, describe the balance between its rich nature and light mouthfeel or find the cause of its wandering cast of characters.
“I wish I could say I knew that it would be this incredible,” Burch said. “It’s really vibrant — it doesn’t just lay there. How can something almost 12 percent sugar be this light?”
The winemaker suspects harvest 15 years ago has something to do with it. The grapes were barely ripe when picked, measuring just a tick over 26 brix. Burch racked the Port garage style in weathered barrels and fortified at 9.5 percent residual sugar. Somewhere in all that, the wine found its course.
“It’s been an amazing wine,” he said.
The two barrels stowed away so many years ago produced 89 cases of wine. Chacewater released these to the market in July at their Black Label Wine party.
And why not? A wine this expressive deserves a little fanfare.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016. This article originally appeared in July 2015
