After spending every day of this week tasting wines, the last thing I really expected was to want to open a wine from my rack. Yet, that’s exactly what I did as a result of what turned out to be one long day after all. It was after dinner, almost time for bed and I thought it would be relaxing to open a bottle of something tasty – and’s that exactly what I did. Enter Zenaida Cellars 2009 Beekeeper.
I’ve tasted the wine many times in Zenaida’s beautiful tasting room — and have purchased a few bottles of the course of the last year… needless to say, I’ve never oepend one for myself. The first bottle I opened was during the 2011 holidays, where I poured a little taste for my older brother, only to come back to an empty bottle and the confirmation of “that was good!”. I’m so glad that he liked it, but if memory serves correctly, I got stuck with iced tea – thanks “Age” You’re lucky I love you!
Since then I have gone back to purchase a couple more bottles, one of which resides in my fridge for “one of those days” and another which is in my wine room hanging out with the other bottles. Well last night as I was trying to decide what to open, I opened the fridge and there it was – lit up with a beautiful white aura around it as the answer to my prayers! I grabbed it, screwed off the top (it’s like Zenaida pre-planned easy access for days like this), and poured a glass of this gorgeous light amber colored liquid just to the widest point of the glass and let it sit out for a few minutes to warm up just a little bit
I sniffed it, this 100% Roussanne smelled cold, crisp, honey-like. I swirled it up and it brought on the aroma of a citrus – komquats maybe? Oh it smelled perfect! I tasted it and it was creamy yet refreshing. It was balanced with notes of honey that were just sweet enough to be dessert, but healthy enough to not cause cavities. I just loved it.. .*sigh**… relaxation in my glass.
According to Zenaida’s blog,
Beekeeper is a dessert wine, 100% Roussanne 17% alc. With a couple grams of residual sugar making it smooth as honey. Beekeeper got its name not so much from the final product but more from how it is handled during harvest by everyone involved in processing the fruit. The fruit is picked at an extremely sticky sweet level that is very attractive to bees. The bees will swarm over it and engorge themselves with the syrupy juice, and follow it as it moves from the field to the truck, to the press, and then the fermenter. You feel like a beekeeper as you very gingerly move through the swarm trying not to get stung.
About Claudia
