I don't know much about wine. I typically enjoy local wines from places like Sharpe Hill, Priam Vineyards, or somewhat less locally, the absolutely wonderful Thousands Islands Winery. I know the difference between grape varietals and what they should taste like, but I find navigating labels and prices of wines in a liquor store confusing and frequently disappointing. I thoroughly enjoy going to wine tastings at local wineries, but don't have the knowledge base or patience to become a wine nerd. (Sorry, oenoligist!)
Ice wine is a particular type of white wine, often made in Canada and other northern climates. The grapes for ice wine are harvested after the first frost, and the cold freezes some of the water in the grapes, concentrating the sugars and flavors in the wine. Ice wine is intense, with lots of honey sweetness and big grape flavors. I've never had an actual ice wine, but I've thoroughly enjoyed several late harvest wines, which have similar characteristics I'd highly recommend an ice wine or a late harvest to anyone who enjoys sweet honey flavors or white wine.
I found Canadian Ice Wine tea browsing through the Culinary Teas website, and was intrigued. Culinary Teas makes some excellent flavored teas, so I ordered a 1 oz. sampler in the spirit of trying something new and unusual. The first thing I did with the tea was open the package and sniff. It has a really nice aroma, mellow tea (Ceylon, unless I miss my guess) mingling with sweet, pleasant wine. What, then, does the tea actually taste like? Sadly, not very good! The first flavor to hit my tongue is of the wine, and it's pleasant enough, but it's almost immediately undercut by the astringency of the tea. The tea base is not bad, nor is the mildly sweet, grape flavor of the wine; they just don't go together! The tea and the wine struggle to be heard against each other, and certainly don't complement each other. I give the tea blenders an A for effort and for the concept, but an F for the execution, which is barely drinkable. My suggestion is to enjoy a quality cup of tea and a quality glass of wine separately, though I wonder if a sweeter tea and/or a dryer wine might play together better.
You have to love the spirit of creative novelty that goes into something like this, but wine and tea are not something I would ever expect to go well together.
ReplyDeleteI know squat about tea, but would it be possible to mitigate the problems with this with some extra sweetening (or other additives)? Or are such additions generally considered a bad thing?
ReplyDeleteJacob - I would be willing to try maybe a white or possibly green tea flavored with a sweeter wine, or maybe the right black tea flavored with a dry red wine, but yeah, this combo was terrible.
ReplyDeleteMark - I usually do add sugar, honey, or agave nectar to my tea (with the exception of greens, whites, and stuff like Darjeeling). I added about a teaspoon of sugar to this tea, and then another teaspoon in the hopes of salvaging it, but to no avail. The combo of sweet wine and astringent tea just doesn't work.