2017 Inniskillin Vidal Icewine Gold
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Picked 14 December at between -9 and -11 °C. Pressed, cold-settled for 72 hours, inoculated and fermented for 22 days in new French oak. Aged for four months in French oak before filtering and bottling. RS 256 g/l, TA 9.94 g/l, pH 3.6. Golden. And just like Lyle's Golden Syrup. I want this on my pancakes with single cream! Alphonso mangos dripping with juice, passion fruit reduced into syrup and swirled into thick, kerned yogurt and spooned lavishly over hot waffles swooning in puddles of melted butter. Nothing about this wine is less than excess. It's a diva. No holds barred. Like a liquid Fabergé egg. (TC)
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Average Score
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
James Suckling
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The 2017 Gold Vidal Icewine was fermented for about three weeks in new French oak and then aged for another four months in French oak. It comes in at 9.5% alcohol, 256 grams of residual sugar and 9.94 of total acidity with a pH of 3.6. The price references a half bottle. Why trade up from the regular Vidal? Well, they are quite different in style. It's more about the style than any qualitative difference. This has a fuller feel in the mouth. It is much denser. The wood is not noticeable as such, but it gives this a less unctuous texture and a little more character, cutting the relentless sugar hit a little. To be sure, the price paid for that gain is the loss of a little purity and freshness. It is still sexy and quite delicious, so don't worry about that too much. On the first day tasted, this was my favorite of the two Vidals. When they were retasted the next day, it was tossup. This seemed a bit more stolid, relatively speaking. These have multiple bottlings, and there is a very faint bottling date stamped on the bottle (not the label). This stamp, below the label, near the bottom of the bottle, says in tiny print (hold it up to the light) "2018032117," indicating that it was bottled on November 17, 2018. The printing was a little garbled on this particular brand and bottling, but you can make out most of it.
This is really wild with lots of dried-apple and lemon character. Some cream and sweet-lemon candy. Full-bodied, very sweet and dense. Oily aftertaste. Drink now.