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Nothing like a jalapeno wine to broaden the ol’ tasting horizons

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By Mark Fisher, Staff Writer 3:15 PM Wednesday, November 25, 2009

HOUSTON, Texas — It was a tasting experience unlike any other. And one I’m not anxious to repeat.

I served as a judge earlier this month for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo 2010 International Wine Competition. This is the fourth consecutive year I’ve done so, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why they keep asking me back, but by golly they do. It appears that I am the token Yankee, along with a handful of other judges who travel to Houston from New York City and Sacramento.

I served on a tasting panel with four Houston-area wine enthusiasts — two involved in the wine trade, one who runs a very fine local restaurant, and one very knowledgeable consumer. On day 1 of the judging, we went through our paces, swirling, sniffing, sipping and spitting more than 100 wines, including six flights (12 each, for 72 total) of cabernet sauvignons from around the world, which turned our front teeth and tongues a lovely shade of purplish-black.

But it was the small, seemingly innocuous flight of fruit wines — just three small glasses — where one very big surprise lurked.

Keep in mind judges taste these wines “blind” without knowing the producer or any other information about the wine, other than, in this case, these wines were made from some type of fruit other than grapes.

The first of the three was appeared to be a white wine, very faintly colored. We judges stuck our noses in the glasses and furrowed our collective brows. What was that aroma?

“It smells like ... snow peas,” one of my fellow judges said. I sniffed again. He was right. Vaguely like snow peas. What was this wine made from?

Cautiously, I took a sip. BAM! A wave of spice — hot-pepper spice — filled my mouth, but then subsided fairly quickly. What in the world was that? I was flummoxed. My Texas comrades were not.

“That’s pepper wine,” one said. “Jalapeno pepper wine.”

Later, we learned he was absolutely right — the wine was from Circle S Vineyards in Sugar Land, Texas, a scant 19 miles from downtown Houston. And yes, jalapeno peppers are fruit.

According to the Circle S web site, the wine sells for $15 per half-bottle (375 ml). When the winery released its jalapeno wine last year, it sold 2,000 bottles in 28 minutes. So this has its fans, even if I’m not among them.

“A sip or two is perfect for those cold winter evenings,” the winery web sites says of the jalapeno wine.

I might argue otherwise.

“You’ll be surprised,” the web site says.

No argument there.

• Five days after my jalapeno wine experience — plenty of time for the palate to recover — I tasted through four newly released 2009 Nouveau Beaujolais. The winner was the Domaine Rochette Beaujolais Villages Nouveau ($14.99), which had a touch of a tannin and tasted more like a non-nouveau Beaujolais — it’s simply good red wine. I also liked the Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau ($14.99), which seemed to have a bit more fruit and depth than the two less expensive nouveaus, from Bouchard and Georges Duboeuf (both $10.99). All four, however, were a step up from some previous vintages, so perhaps there’s something to the hype over the 2009 vintage in many regions of France.

For the record, none smelled like snow peas.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2258 or mfisher@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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