Colome Torrontes 2007

Sometimes I can just taste the stress & hard life at the edge of the world in a wine. Wine is just more interesting & has more personality when it has to struggle, much like people. I had the pleasure of tasting just such a wine on Friday, Bodega Colome Torrontes 2007 Salta, Argentina $15.99. The vines are biodynamically (no small feat at this altitude) grown between 5000 - 8000 feet above sea level in high desert. At that altitude they are stressed to their limit & have to struggle to produce fruit. That struggle produces grapes that have extra thick skins & juice that is super concentrated producing a wine that is rich but not cloying or heavy. Its aroma gives away its relation to the muscat grape with floral, candied notes of ginger & jasmine. With a silver cloak & gleaming translucency I thought that the palate would be light, brisk & clean but I was wrong. On the palate I found a rich, concentrated & broad wine that lingered with flavors of papaya, guava & a glycerol almost lanolin-like texture. A life of struggle can yield beauty.