In wine lover circles, the pinnacle of the wine world are the exotic dessert wines made in small and rare quantities, often with a high prices attached to them. Cherished by the well-heeled and lucky few, this style of wine is made in several parts of the world and is as varied in style as the passionate people who make them.
The wines I am talking about are the elusive Hungarian fruit wines and brandies, the Austrian fruit schnapps, the ice ciders and ice wines of Canada, the organic, fortified mistelles of North America’s West Coast and more locally the exotic tropical dessert wines of Thailand.
These great wines and liqueurs appeal to not only to the east Asian affinity to sweeter wines with clean and fresh aromas but also offer a pure expression of terroir from the land that produces the fruit and grapes to make these fabulous elixirs.
The Ganadpuszta wines of Ipoly Valley in Hungary where gentle climate and expert cultivation guarantee highly aromatic fruits is a prime example of a passion for quality dessert wine production that is hard to fathom until the wine are experienced. There is an ancient tradition of winemaking and distillation from a wide variety of wild and cultivated flowers and fruits in that region that has been going on uninterrupted for centuries.
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