Santa Digna 2009, Gewürztraminer, €9.95

Mill Wine Cellar, €9.95

Ring the bells the Chilean prejudice is well and truly dead. An interestingly clean and clear straw gold filled glass seems like it has been the straw that broke this camels back. Something that’s rather not the norm this Chilean, with what can only be described as pungent aromas leap from the glass and there is no difficultly in there location but there is a lot going on in the glass.

We have nearly every tropical fruit in the world vying for the nose from the off, we start the journey with a clean melon and honey nose, and a curiosity to which will play the bigger part in this as the air opens the curtains on this wine. But as the mini drama unfolds the honey sharpens and rounds into a distinct honey suckle and a fragrant and refreshing blast of passion fruit, lime & pineapple erupt on the nose. It’s fair if not safe to say that the notes from the nose on this wine are already small novel in themselves.

But the nose didn’t end there. Rose petals and a gritted flint entered to bolster the notes of minerality that had been so far overwhelmed by the big fruits that were tussling around the glass for superiority. Pine apple and passion fruit and pineapple started to mesh closer and closer and a faint memory of Dragon fruit was awoken and suddenly there was a whole lot more to this already brilliantly complex wine.

Now, it would be stupid to think after enjoying the tastes of this that I would leave it at that and not taste the wine. But after becoming obsessed with the nose I was a little worried that the wines palate offers would have too much to live up too.

Thankfully, the wine packed one hell of a tropical fruit and minerality punch. It could be said that the experience was akin to being beaten with every fruit imaginable and then told to lick freshly cut flint to cleanse the palate. A slightly less than bone dry wine, the Gewürztraminer offered pineapple and refreshing mineral as its spine.

This developed into honey suckle and peach and the pineapple so prevalent on the nose began to open on the palate. A debate broke out to the spicy flavours of the wine and was settle by accepting my palate much be sensitive to it after the chilli soup incident. What was interesting was the way the wine began to close with a final bow of the core elements of melon, pineapple and honey suckle and give a hidden lash of grassy and gooseberry sharpness to interest the taster.

Now after all that, you might expect that we would be talk €15 plus on this but no, we are actually coming in at a very healthy €9.95 which left my Chilean prejudice left for dead and my feet gathering pace to find a second bottle. See what you think?

Regards,

Rob