TKN?

[ivorypassages]

Can someone tell me what TKN is? I beleive it is a late harvest wine.

[Innkeeper]

Hi Ivory and welcome to the Wine Board. Can you provide any other details on this wine? All I can find about TKN is a process for making organic wines.

[Drew]

Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (TKN)

Drew

[ivorypassages]

I read about the process. I may be asking the wrong question not being a wine enthusiast. Perhaps I should just ask for a recommendation on a good German or late harvest wine?

[Innkeeper]

Bonny Doon Muscat Vin de Glaciere. It is a faux ice wine (he freezes the grapes, and then makes this wine from them). Therefore it is available for around $17 for a 375 ml bottle. This is a bargain for this type of wine.

[Thomas]

...but, it is not a true ice wine which, in the part of the world where ice wine is regulated, means leaving grapes to hang on the vines really late, into December, until they ice over and then are harvested, crushed and produced into wines that have been intensely affected by concentration of sugars and acids.

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 03-31-2004).]

[Innkeeper]

Faux ice wine means not really ice wine!

[wondersofwine]

In the United States Arrowood makes a nice late harvest riesling some years. It is not available every vintage. Also, I highly recommend the Greenwood Ridge Late Harvest Riesling if you can find it. (I tried a Hogue Late Harvest from Washington State but didn't find it to have the sweetness I expected from a late harvest wine). From Germany you might look for Merkelbach Urziger Wurzgarten Auslese (I just tried my first bottle of the 2002 and it was very nice), J.J. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese, etc. Some of the Auslese wines (specially selected grapes with higher ripeness, Brix or sugar measurement at harvest than even the Spatlese--late-picked grapes) are available for $25 to $35. It gets more expensive going into Beerenauslese or Trockenbeerenauslese or Eiswein. If I do purchase Eiswein (lovely stuff) I usually get a half bottle or 375 ml size and even then it may cost $50 or more. The Eiswein has an acidity that makes them approachable at a young age. Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese can be too cloying when young (syrupy) and show their merit better when aged.
It also occurs to me that you could possibly be thinking of late harvest wines from Alsace--SGN I believe is the designation for Selection of Grains Nobles (from Gewurztraminer or Riesling?) and Tardives means late-picked or late harvest. I don't know if they combine those terms for TGN.

[This message has been edited by wondersofwine (edited 04-01-2004).]

[Thomas]

I know IK. I thought it would help to explain to ivorypassages what you meant by the (faux) comment.

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 04-01-2004).]

[lipwig]

Perhaps you were interested in a TKB (trockenbeerenauslese)? They are generally made in extremely small batches (I've seen some that were limited to 7 cases) and are coveted among Riesling lovers. This small quantity, high demand usually means that they will be really expensive. The previous posts mentioned some good alternatives. I would only add two suggestions. The first is to try some other styles of rielsing. Spatlese and Auslese styles are nice, and can have a dessert-like quality to them. They are also a lot less expensive. My other suggestion would be to try some of the ice wines from the Niagra region of Ontario. Inniskillin and Hillebrand should be readily available. I also had a nice one which I believe it was from Jackson-Triggs, but I don't have the empty bottle readily available.

Lipwig

[wondersofwine]

Just for informational purposes, Trockenbeerenauslese is usually abbreviated TBA.