Stickie Shock

Gil Nickel, a good ol’ boy from Oklahoma, isn’t about to drawl that it’s time for Chateau d’Yquem to step aside.

But his new Dolce, a dessert wine that debuts this week at $50 for a half-bottle, is America’s first formal effort to build a winery solely around dessert wines styled like Sauternes, and its pricing is nearly as high as Yquem’s.

The Dolce project, begun in 1985 with an experimental wine at Nickel’s Far Niente Winery, has grown into a full-fledged effort to replicate Sauternes, the sublime dessert wine that’s a blend of late-harvested Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc.

Nickel won’t compare Dolce with Yquem, the acknowledged king of Sauternes, but the parallels are obvious. Dolce is the most expensive dessert wine ever made in the United States; Yquem is the most expensive dessert wine in Sauternes. The 1986 Chateau d’Yquem sold for $125 for a half-bottle, which makes it about $10 an ounce.

At that price, you might consider dabbing it behind the ears. But resist the temptation unless you want a swarm of bees around: Wines like these are very sweet. (So sweet that in Australia they are called stickies. ) Dolce is excellent. It has a delicate aroma of honey, vanilla and fresh hay, combined with ample acidity and a creamy rich finish with modest sweetness. Only 500 cases were made, almost all in small bottles.

Dirk Hampson, Far Niente’s winemaker, loved the tiny amount of sweet wine he made in 1985, so he explored the Napa Valley for more Semillon grapes. Nickel, who made his fortune in the nursery business in Oklahoma, agreed to fund the project for a few more years.

When the 1986 wine turned out well, Hampson said: “This is good. Let’s make enough to be commercial with it.” Nickel agreed, but then bad weather wiped out efforts in 1987 and 1988, making Nickel wince over the amount of money it was costing him. “But we thought it was too good not to make,” he says, so the project went forward with the 1989 vintage, the current release.

Dolce’s price may shock some, but Hampson pointed out that it won’t be made every year--only in years when nature infects the grapes with the noble mold Botrytis, concentrating the sugars.

“This has to be self-supporting, so the price has to be high,” Hampson said. “The years you make it have to pay for the years you don’t make it.”

The name Dolce completes the Italian saying dolce far niente , which means blissful idleness. (By itself, far niente means doing nothing, which is hardly what’s going on here.)

Interestingly, though Dolce is excellent, it may not be better than the 1986 Chalk Hill Semillon ($10 for a half-bottle), one of the most complex Sauterne-style wines I have ever tasted from California. And Dolce may not be better than the 1988 Nightingale from Beringer Vineyards ($21 a half-bottle). Two more wines worth considering here: 1989 Kalin Cellars Cuvee d’Or ($21.50) and 1989 Topaz ($18).

Speaking of expensive wine, Dolce seems downright cheap when compared to the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti’s famed single-vineyard wine, Romanee-Conti, from the heralded 1989 vintage.

It’s supposed to sell for $940 a bottle, which is believed to make it the most expensive newly released wine ever sold in this country.

The 1989 vintage is considered excellent in Burgundy, as was 1988, and tasting through all of the 1989 DRC wines last week I was struck by their generosity--their amazingly complex flavors and tastes at such an early stage.

Prices for the lesser five of these wines are lower than last year’s prices for the ‘88s. Still, you’ll pay about $120 for the cheapest of them, Echezeaux.

DRC’s importers, Win Wilson and Jack Daniels, say the $940 price for Romanee-Conti is an attempt to thwart gray marketeers. In recent years, gray market buyers have been selling legally acquired DRC wines at discount prices.

Daniels said the Grands-Echezeaux will be seen at an average price of $150 a bottle; Romanee-St.-Vivant at $165; Richebourg at $225, and La Tache at $325.

My favorite of the wines? All are superb, but Grands-Echezeaux is truly remarkable, filled with cherry, spiced fruit and complexity including an anise-mint component.

Wine of the Week

1990 Nalle Zinfandel ($14) --When a winery makes only one wine, it’d better be good. Doug Nalle has never released a mediocre Zinfandel, but this one may be his best yet: a wine loaded with raspberry and blackberry scents, a trace of cedar from oak aging and a lovely texture. Nalle’s 1989 Zinfandel was lighter and more elegant, but this richer wine offers finesse in a weightier package. While not a wine for fans of chewy monster Zinfandels, this is one of the most stylish wines in California.