around the forums (egullet) its been wildly popular to post what finds you’ve turned up at mom and pop liquor stores. some people score defunked gins and others get defunk liqueurs. i’ve turned up some killer aged dry vermouth from cinzano that has no written reference towards it. there is wild stuff lurking out there…
lately i’ve exhausted the city’s supply of out of production liquors so i’ve moved onto wine. some of these small out of the way liquor stores have inadvertently given wine some serious cellaring… a lot of these shops seem like they at least made an attempt to sell wine a long time ago but now have moved on to franzia, yellow tail and light beer. anything even slightly esoteric seems to sit around and mature… so far i have grabbed some incredible mature whites for less than 10 dollars.
old wines are definitely not for everyone’s tastes. there is no fresh fruit character. no bright flavors. i personally have never been impressed with a red wines over nine years old. so to play the game, i only look for whites. again the whites are not for everyone. they are sherried, chamomily, and often nutty in ways that can’t fully be described… in general these wines are hard to fully describe. young versus old whites are similar in character to women. young women can be just hot, loud, and sort of clumsy while the older milfy cougars have practiced hands, a certain extra seduction, and they know how to keep a man in the house.
i haven’t learned the complete ins and outs of it, but to pick an old white you need to look at the structure of the fresh wine of the same type. acidity and sugar (when applicable) seems to be the biggest determinate of longevity besides reasonably proper storage. oak doesn’t seem to be that valuable and the oaked wine are typically in styles that have less acid.
so far the gems have been a 1991 vallerosa bonci verdicchio dei castelli di jesi which was bought for eight dollars. the wine in its youth typically has great acidity, is green and really fresh in flavor, and characterized by a bitter note suggestive of almonds. the intense aging of the 1991 and maybe some storage variables made the wine reminiscent of dry sherry. any brightness to the wine was gone and what was left was massively sophisticated nut character. layers of almonds and hazelnuts and other weird things i had no proper association with. all in all it was very special.
the next gem was a 2000 luis felipe edwards chardonnay from colchagua chile bought for eight dollars. the back label desribed the wine as having “melon, banana, and tropical fruit”, being “fresh”, and “distinctive by fruitiness”. the label also points out that the wine is unfiltered. any fresh topical fruits on the nose and palate have transformed into complex cidery notes with abstract appliness inherent to varietal. the wine has a full bodied feel and a certain creaminess. the golden color of the wine is pretty incredible and make it really seductive. along with the overall cidery charcter i was resminded of chamomile and flower pollen, with a fall carnavel apple dipped in caramel on the persistent finish. this wine bore no resemblance to sherry…
hopefully i can keep finding these for years to come…