Increasingly drinkable

I first tasted an osmanthus wine over three decades ago and it was perfectly awful. While I'm still not a huge fan of wines made with osmanthus flowers, there are some increasingly drinkable examples here in China.

Osmanthus wines may be made with grapes, rice wine or other ingredients but the examples I have tasted were all made with white wine grapes. In these wines the osmanthus flower is added to increase the aromatics of the wines resulting in quite unique sweet aromas.

Most of the lesser osmanthus-scented grape wines tend to be quite sweet with obvious osmanthus qualities but little else. In these factory-produced wines, the heavy fragrance and flavor of the sweet osmanthus overpowers the fruit of the wines.

These wines also lack acidity often making them sticky sweet in the mouth. However, the best examples of osmanthus grape wines are made by quality wineries that make normal grape wines as well as osmanthus infused wines.

These wines are less sweet and have a nice acidic backbone that freshens the palate. The use of osmanthus is more restrained resulting in a more delicate, balanced and multi-dimensional wine. Some of the better osmanthus wines I've tasted are made by Clouds Winery and Viction Winery located in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

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