Almost immediately upon beginning my wine education reading, I learned about noble rot. I started flipping through 1001 Wines You Must Taste Before You Die and found myself looking at a page about a wine from Spain, the Corona Reserva Blanco Semi Dulce. Noticing the vintage date on the wine was 1939, I read the description more closely. (Best read the description, I thought, since I’m clearly never going to have a bottle of wine from 1939 in my hand). In a bit of a history lesson, I learned that in 1939 the Spanish Civil War came to an end, though in Rioja things were so chaotic that the harvest was severely delayed. Thus the grapes used in this wine were “likely affected by botrytis”. Having no clue what that could possibly mean, I consulted my Oxford Companion to Wine.

Turns out there’s a fungus called botrytis cinerea (aka noble rot) that thrives on thin-skinned grapes with high sugar content in just the right moist and warm climates. The result? Moldy grapes. Exactly what everyone wants to make wine out of...? Apparently. This is the method used, on purpose, for some of the world’s most renowned sweet wines, including those of Sauternes, and has a long history dating back to the 1600’s in Hungary. (They use grapes that are nobly rotten for Tokay. Don’t worry, I’ll try that someday too.)

How this works is that the mold causes the escape of the water inside the grape (the mold needs the water to germinate its spores), leaving the sugar, acid and flavor more concentrated. Moldy, raisinated grapes result. In order to end up with these grapes the conditions have to be just right for the fungus to grow (location near water for moisture, cool nights and warm days), and grapes, or berries, are often picked one by rotten one from September and sometimes into November. What little juice remains in the grapes is then extracted and fermented into this apparently delicious, and sweet, wine.

Sauternes, which is wine made in the Bordeaux region of France (and can come from one of five communes, though Sauterenes and Barsac are the most well known), usually from Semillion, is probably the most famous wine made from botrytis afflicted grapes. So, a week or so after learning about this most noble of molds, when I found a small bottle for $19.99 at Whole Foods, I bought it. Never mind that I still had two months of pregnancy left at that time. I picked up the 2004 Le Dauphin de Guiraud, from Chateau Guiraud. This appears to be the second label wine from Chateau Guiraud (the first of which does appear in the 1001 Wines book), so it seems a good place to start. So, next up is this "nectar" of a wine.