Passito Sanct Valentin Comtess 2019: a wine for those who enjoy sweet and spicy flavors

Passito Sanct Valentin Comtess 2019 is a rare and precious sweet wine, a true nectar distilled from magnificent bunches of Gewurztraminer. It’s not cheap, and the bottle is 0.375 liters, but don’t let that put you off—quite the opposite. It brings home the extreme and uncompromising quality of this sweet wine.

Because this wine is made by drying the grapes, the bunches lose over 50% of their weight, and thus the yield is drastically reduced. Quality comes at a price, but in this case we are we happy to shell out money in exchange for great emotions.

I’d like to be completely honest. I’ve been a fan of this wine since my first visit to Alto Adige, when I sampled not only this Traminer passito but also the excellent Hofstatter wine. They are two heavyweights in the category, and both deserve to be tasted.

How it is produced

Small plots of grapes are harvested in the Castel Valentin area. Gewurztraminer, which prefers the heaviness of clays, is rare in pebbly soils rich in limestone. But in this case, we’re looking for minerality, freshness, and the sharp side of the vine, rather than the aromatic explosion that the drying process ensures. The bunches are pressed after drying, and the must ferments and ages for a couple of years in both steel and small wooden barrels.

Organoleptic characteristics

Reading the reviews on Vivino or other sites makes you laugh until you cry. A well-balanced wine. This wine has the fleshiness of a wild and crazy embrace.

It relies on freshness and sweetness, but the sweetness is devastating and frequently wins without becoming cloying. But don’t expect it to be a precise and well-framed wine. It’s an assault, an infernal sarabande fired from a pirate’s cannon into a tropical powder magazine.

Everything is taken to its logical conclusion. With a meaty mix of spices and flowers drowned in honey, the bouquet is enveloping and sensual. Marzipan and pepper, salted apricots, and caramelized roses

There will be billions of perfumes, each more mocking and sumptuous than the last, with dates and mangoes exploding like grenades. It’s viscous on the palate, and it sticks to your taste buds like golden fleece. It’s thick and creamy, similar to lemon cream. It tastes like cinnamon apple pie.

You bite into it, you love it, and you’d never stop drinking it if it didn’t run out so quickly. The sweetness is strong, and despite everything, a stone call can be heard beneath this blanket of lust. There is the Dolomites’ backbone, and there is the temperature range that caused the grapes to ripen slowly.

These have an endless finish and are nutty with walnuts and rosemary. We are at the level of Moscatel de Setubal in terms of aging potential. Because it’s thick and sugary, you could drink it for the next 30 years, but it already has a certain charm.

Price

32 euros: the best money you’ve ever spent.

Food pairings

All of the blue cheeses available are: gorgonzola, stilton, roquefort or terrine, Tuscan paté, and, of course, tiramisù and apple pie.