Some durians have an ability to pattern-interrupt your perception of how durian taste like.

Some do it by being tasteless. Some taste like raw vegetable. And some triggers euphoria in a way that you’d never thought possible.

One of those famous durians that is a catalyst for a pleasant WTF moment is red flower. It does so with it’s Whisky-like taste.

And the moment I tried this durian, the memories of red flower came flooding in. Except that this time instead of a whisky taste, I tasted wine. So fitting that the name of this durian is wine taste, jiu wei (酒味) in Chinese. I would just call it wine durian in short.

Wine is a very rare durian of Balik Pulau in Penang. You would really need to be fated to run into it. And when you do, you’d be thanking your lucky stars that they are shining on you.

The husk of wine durian bulges at each lobe. Interestingly a similar feature that can be observed on red flower. But you would not mistake one for the other as the former’s bulges are more conspicuous and pronounced. The durian is generally larger than the latter too.

The thorn pattern looks a little like 101. But not as slim. And an indented bottom that enables the durian to stand upright on it’s own.

The fruitlets are yellow and a little towards the orangey spectrum.

As mentioned earlier, this durian taste like wine. I felt that it’s more like red wine. But a good number of my kakis felt that it resembles more of white wine. I’m no liqueur expert. I’ll just generally call it wine.

You won’t find a heavy durian flavour. It’s barely noticeable. If anything, it taste more like durian flavoured wine rather than wine flavoured durian.

It is accompanied by a bitterness that comes with hard liqueur. It’s a natural wonder that there are durians that can taste like this.

If you are to do a blind tasting test, I bet that some people will think that they are having some kind of cream-based dessert in a fine dining restaurant.

The yield is low on this durian. So remember to share.