Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey ....

The word of the chorus of the Pomus / Shuman song made famous by The Searchers keeps ringing in my head. Perhaps because it is Valentines Day this Wednesday and I've been enjoying this gorgeous little sweetie wine. Then I though what a lovely gift this would make - a sweetie for a special sweetie.

It is the Brown Brothers Late Harvested Orange Muscat and Flora 1999, a delicious little wine made from realatively unusual grape varieties by an innovative Australian wine company in North East Victoria.

It's a bright light gold in colour, the colour of a 9 carat golden ring (is that a hint for you romantic types), while the appealing aromas of orange blossoms are accompanied with just a hint of musk.

The flavours are very clean, very refreshing with spritzy lemon, candied lemonzest and perhaps some candied angelica leaves. It is sweet, but not overpoweringly sweet, just perfectly balanced to the lemon-like acidity, while there's a mouthfilling richness in the fruit flavours and concentration of this late harvested style.

The wine is just 10.5% in alcohol and comes in a 375ml bottle, just perfect for two. It cost me $14.85 in New Zealand. I recommend serving chilled.

Brown Brothers grow the grapes for this wine, along with a number of other varieties, at the warmer Mystic Park Vineyards near Swan Hill on the northern boundary of Victoria quite away further west than the other Brown Brothers Vineyards, which are near their winery in the King Valley. The hot vineyards with their low rainfall see no rot, which is why this wine tastes so clean.