2005 Two Hands For Love or money Cane Cut Semillon Barossa Valley Late Harvest

2005 Two Hands For Love or money Cane Cut Semillon Barossa Valley Late Harvest

By Codey Foster

I’m always discovering and re-discovering brilliant little gems in our racks and on the shelves that our staff and our customers have forgotten in our frequent store rotations and floods of new wines. We like to keep things fresh but sometimes in the excitement of new wines grown on volcanoes or made in strange villages from unknown grapes—we lose track of the rare gems that we were so proud of last week. This is one of the gems on our shelves that I think we’ve kind of forgotten about for a while—a cane cut, late harvest Semillon from Barossa Valley. Two Hands cut the canes (most of the vine) off of Two acres of super ripe Semillon. They let the grapes, which are still attached to the vine, hang until water had evaporated from them and they had become raisons containing super concentrated juice and sugars. The raisons were pressed and the result is one of the richest Sauternes-like desert wines we’ve ever tasted.

In the glass this raison wine shows a deep orangey gold with almost some reds filling in at the heart of the wine.

On the nose it is dense with buttery honey, apricot mango, pineapple, quince, green tea, orange, and butterscotch. The descriptors are abundant but only appropriately so, because the complexity is undoubtedly present.

On the palate this Semillon is shamelessly full bodied, rich, and bight. The acidity is there but the sugar levels are so high (a whopping 263 grams) that it isn’t at the forefront of this meaty and Sauternes-like nectar. Buttery fresh fruit dominates, however sweet crème brulee characteristics follow in the background with hints of French oak and spice.

The dessert pairings for this wine are obvious, but as for the less obvious, I think this wine could do so well with roasted meats and especially if a fruit chutney and/or sweet spice were involved. Also, fresh fruit all on its own is sure to be a win.

Oh, and it got 96 points from Wine Advocate with a projected drinking window of 10-15 years from release.

Cheers.

REGULAR: $63.99

SALE: $49.99

http://www.anconaswine.com/sku13546.html