Thanks to Eric White, we enjoyed this wine. Extremely extracted sweet and syrupy dessert wine. Obviously lots of orange and honey on the palate and the nose. I can only imagine what time will do to this one. 90 pts.

Glad you liked it Lafon. The Chouinard "Joan's Vineyard" Orange Muscat for the past three vintages have been what I call the best dessert wine nobody's ever heard of. Chouinard is a small winery in the Livermore AVA, though it's technically in Fremont along Palomares Cnyn Rd (on of my favorite bike rides, and a killer hill climb!). They source there grapes from various areas around the state, as well havesting a small Estate plot. The wines are often hit-or-miss, but the Orange Muscat is a real winner.

FWIW, the 2001 is the first year they've done this wine in a psudo-icewine style (cryogenically freezing the grapes to remove water and thus increasing the residule sugar). The 2001 has an RS of over 100%, while the previous rendition have been down around 8-9%. Big difference with regard to the syrupy nature of the wine. Also fairly low win alcohol at 11.2% (iirc).