Given the below average performance of some of the Friulian wines I’ve tried over the last few weeks, I was beginning to wonder if I was going to regret spending $50 on this wine. Its not like Picolit was on my master list, I just simply gave in to the uniqueness of this wine described by K&L as ‘very special’ and the fact there were only a handful in stock.

What really was the deciding factor was reading about this unusual grape variety. The Wine Bible describes it as the wine that “probably shouldn't even exist”. Because of a genetic mutation many of the flowers simply fall off instead of becoming grapes, this is caused by a super low pollination rate. Thus a very small, or piccolo, amount of grapes are produced. Those that do exist are then dried on mats to concentrate the sugars and turned into this rare, and pricey, dessert wine.

Like so many Italian wine grapes, Picolit is a regional one, this wine is made in the Friuli region. Period. It's a very golden honey color in the glass. It very nearly looked like a wine bottle full of honey.

On the nose it smelled of honey (as was rumored), and sweet. I also thought it smelled a bit like peach pie with fresh whip cream, which while incredibly specific, was specifically what came to mind. There was a hint of nuttiness, I thought hazelnut, likely only because I associate sweet, yet nutty things with hazelnut because of products like hazelnut coffee flavoring and Nutella.

Enough anticipation already-- how did it taste?! It was fantastic! It was lighter than I expected (perhaps because it could seem like one was about to drink a glass of honey). It was sweeter than honey, which when eaten straight up has a bit of tang to it, more like a light caramel. There were also peaches and some floral overtones. Just as the K&L description promised, however, it wasn’t too sweet, but very balanced. So good! Way to come out ahead in the end, Friuli.

The Score: ★ ★ ★ ★½