Imported Entries

Friday evening, I stopped by Renaissance Wines for a free tasting from Winter's Hill Vineyard. The tasting was unusual in that most of the wines were white.

I forgot to take notes, which I realized only after the tasting. Grr. So, from memory, here are my impressions.

The 2003 Pinot Gris was not terribly impressive. It wasn't bad, but it fell a little flat.

The Pinot Noir Rosé was interesting, but I'm not sure that I really liked it. Rosé has a bad rap in this country because a lot of really crappy wine is sold under that description. This was nothing like that. This was a dry wine that had been allowed to sit on its skins for just long enough to pick up some color. I don't think the Rosé style is to my liking at this point, and I don't know it well enough to evaluate this wine. It was very subdued.

The 2004 Pinot Gris was very nice. It is much more fruit-forward than the '03. I bought a bottle of this. It was $15, which I felt was quite fair.

The Pinot Noir they poured (I forget the vintage) was good, but not incredible. I don't know what they ask for it, but I'd expect to pay somewhere around $22.

The Early Harvest Muscat was excellent. I love Muscat, and it's a little hard to find. This one was off-dry, and had brilliant floral character. I sort of regret not buying a bottle, but I suspect I can pick one up later.

Last was a dessert wine called White Gold. It's a Pinot Blanc made in the style of an ice wine... sort of. As it is not actually cold enough to freeze grapes on the vine in this climate, they commercially froze the grapes after picking, and pressed them frozen. The result is a sweet dessert wine that I really enjoyed. I haven't had much Pinot Blanc, but what I have had has been impressive.

I say "sort of" because a real ice wine is made in a cold climate where the grapes freeze on the vine. I read somewhere that the grape vines dump extra sugars into the fruit to depress the melting point. In any case, real ice wines are very late-harvest, and the risks to the harvest are considerable. Authentic ice wine is fairly rare.

Winter's Hill

06/27/05

04:53:29 pm Winter's Hill

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