2017 Quady Essensia

2017 Quady Essensia

2017 Quady Essensia Essensia is a full-bodied sweet 2017 wine made with Orange Muscat grapes. The experience of Essensia is unmistakable: a rich gold in the glass is accompanied by spicy orange-apricot-pear flavors and aromas, balanced with perfect fruit acidity to finish clean, tempting you for one more sip.

Essensia and dessert are sensational together. Pair with chocolate, almond, peach, apricot and apple desserts, or cheesecake. Dip in biscotti, moisten cakes, and add to truffles. Drink it alongside fresh goat cheese and enjoy the interplay between the sweet and sour flavors.

Quady

In 1980, Andrew Quady’s discovery of underused Orange Muscat grapes in Reedley, California, led him to make a wine that celebrated the intense aromas and spicy fruit flavors of the grapes. “Essensia” refers to the idea that the wine contains the very essence of the grape. In Italy the variety is known as Moscato Fior d’Arancio: Orange Blossom Muscat. Essensia astonished the wine world. At the time, sweet wines were looked down upon. The idea that a distinctive Orange Muscat Varietal wine could be made in the San Joaquin Valley was a revelation.

The Orange Muscat grapes are harvested at 24 brix, crushed, chilled and allowed to macerate. Wine spirits are added to arrest the brief fermentation. The wine is aged for about 3 months in well aged 60 gallon (mostly French oak) barrels.

Essensia is a full-bodied sweet wine made with Orange Muscat grapes. The experience of Essensia is unmistakable: a rich gold in the glass is accompanied by spicy orange-apricot-pear flavors and aromas, balanced with perfect fruit acidity to finish clean, tempting you for one more sip.
Essensia and dessert are sensational together. Pair with chocolate, almond, peach, apricot and apple desserts, or cheesecake. Dip in biscotti, moisten cakes, and add to truffles. Drink it alongside fresh goat cheese and enjoy the interplay between the sweet and sour flavors.

When Andrew Quady and his wife Laurel moved to the San Joaquin Valley to pursue a rural lifestyle and an enology degree at U.C. Davis for Andy, an earlier career producing explosives transformed into a more sensitive, but still dramatic life crafting intense muscat wines. 1600 cases of Zinfandel port started the Quadys off on sweet feet in 1975.

Michael Blaylock joined Quady as winemaker to manage the sudden growth in winemaking operations inspired by Essensia Orange Muscat and Elysium Black Muscat Dessert Wines. Three decades later he has a lot of award winning sweet wines to smile about.

In a small San Joaquin valley town, Andrew Quady discovered an unused patch of the rare Orange Muscat grape varietal, known in Italy as Moscato Fior d’Arancio. These grapes became the first Essensia. This marked the birth of Quady Winery’s muscat expertise – where the rich flavors of rare muscat varietals are celebrated and intensified rather than blended and softened.