Green Cardinal Signals New Stealthy Assassain Species, “Cardinalis ninjitsu”

Some time ago, I visited Cardinal Point Winery with some friends.  Grape Envy Guy wasn’t with me, and I wasn’t really in a note-taking kind of mood, so I never blogged my visit.  I did, however, bring a bottle home with me: the ’11 Green.  The wine struck me as unusual, and I didn’t know what to make of it.  Given this, I figured that Grape Envy Guy and I could spend some time with it at home.

This wine is a 50/50 blend of petit manseng and chardonnay, and the tasting room staff described it as their take on vinho verde.  At the time, that struck me as a comparison that wasn’t apt and wasn’t really helping the wine, and when I opened it at home, my opinion hadn’t changed.  The wine was light and there was some citrus there, but that’s where the similarity ends.

So, what was the wine like?  It offered a bright fruity nose, and the citrus, peach, and pineapple notes showed the presence of petit manseng.  I also noted some green apple notes from the chard.  On the palate, the wine struck me as a bit green given all the fruit on the nose – almost as though the fruit wasn’t fully ripe.  Given this, the best way I could describe the flavors was as stemmy apple/peach.

The wine was light and fairly refreshing.  It was also different than just about anything else I’ve had.  That said, I don’t wish I had more of it.

 

Summer Sipping, VA Wine Style

For those of you who don’t follow all the wine chatter on twitter, you’re likely not very aware of how frequent online wine tastings have become.  Virginia has started to come on board with this, and the VA Wine Board Marketing Office has worked to facilitate a number of these over the last few months.  By doing this, out of state bloggers are become more aware of Virginia wines.  This happens when they are sent sample bottles so that they can participate in a tasting, when they’re invited to a tasting hosted by a nearby blogger, and when they see all the chatter about the tasting on twitter and read the subsequent blog posts many write about the experience.  This is great, and is particularly exciting since VA is hosting the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference in July, and many of the visiting bloggers have little to no exposure to the world of VA wine.  One a local level, Virginia bloggers who participate get to share impression of, often new, wines from through the state with their readers who are already invested in the world of VA wine encouraging (hopefully) more wine trail exploration.

We were recently given the opportunity to be part of one of these tastings.  The theme was wines for summer, and with the temperatures climbing, I was definitely ready for some summer wine options.  Thankfully, 6 sample bottles showed up on my doorstep to help me usher in the season (which, honestly, I wish would wait a bit longer before making an appearance).

The tasting began with the Keswick Vineyards 2010 Verdejo (≈$18).  This wine is 100% verdejo, and, as far as I know, the only verdejo you’ll find in the state.  I noted a light grassy nose with some grapefruit.  As I started to sip, I got tons of lemon along with some grapefruit.  As the wine warmed, some melon came out as well.  There was some great acid in this wine, and I found it very refreshing.  It’s perfect for these crappy hot days we’re having right now, and it ended up being my favorite of the night.  If only I’d thought to prepare some shrimp to nibble as I sipped…

We then moved on to the Veritas Vineyard & Winery 2010 Sauvignon Blanc Reserve (≈$25).  I’ve been a big fan of this wine from previous vintages (see here and here), but 2010 was such a hot year that I knew that the profile of this vintage would likely be a bit different.  On top of that, this vintage is also a blend of grapes from 2 different sauv blanc clones since yields were lower in 2010 and required the blending.  I still enjoy the wine (and actually have a bottle that we bought soon after its release waiting for us on our racks), but I miss some of the bracing acidity that the super hot, dry summer just wouldn’t allow to happen this time around.  I noted lots of fruit – lemon, lime, and peach – and because of this, the wine almost tasted sweet.  Again, I just wished for a bit more acid.  As the wine warmed, I also noted some grass on the finish and the grass and hay were even more noticeable on night two as they were dominant elements along with grapefruit.

We took a turn towards the pink (or perhaps salmon) with wine number 3: the Boxwood Winery 2010 Topiary Rosé (≈$14), and this was the wine that I was most excited about.  I loved the 2009 rosé, so much so that it made my favorite VA wine list, so this wine showing up at my door was incredibly exciting.  (FYI, this year Boxwood has also released a second rosé – the Boxwood Rosé).  This wine is a blend of 75% cab franc and 25% malbec.  The wine offered a very light nose, but I detected a hint of strawberry and herbs.  On the palate, I noted strawberry, some ripe melon, a hint of herbs (maybe thyme or oregano), and some spice – especially on the finish.  I was loving this spice.  Come to think of it – I was loving this wine as a whole.  Oh well, it’s my post, so I figure I can have multiple favorites!  We need to get more of this wine, and a taste of the second rosé ASAP.

Wine number 4 was the first of two viogniers – the Jefferson Vineyards 2010 viognier (≈$25).  I’ve been lucky enough to taste this wine a few times during recent visits to Jefferson, so I already knew I’d enjoy this one.  The wine is actually a blend of 75% viognier, 7% chard, 14% reisling, and 4% petit manseng and 75% of the wine was aged for 6 months in neutral French oak.  This wine is all about the fruit, both tropical and stone fruits, but there are also some floral elements, think honeysuckle and jasmine, and a hint of lemon for good measure.  The wine has some nice acid and an enjoyably round mouthfeel.  All the fruit makes this wine taste a bit sweet, but the residual sugar is only .065%, so it’s basically dry.  I know that they’ll be more of this wine in my future.  Just to let you know, the oak flavors came out on night two – mostly as vanilla notes – but the wine is still very young, so this may be less of an issue in a few months.

The second viognier (100% for this one) was the 2010 from Chrysalis Vineyards (≈$29).  While we’ve yet to have this vintage, we’ve enjoyed viogniers from Chrysalis in the past, but the price tag has always kept us from taking a bottle home.  This wine spent 5 months in wood (95% in neutral oak and 5% in new acacia barrels).  It probably offered a more typically viognier profile with lots of orange blossoms and some honeydew and pear notes.  I enjoy most viogniers that use little to no oak, so I enjoyed tasting these two wines back to back.  FYI, the wood in this wine also came out more strongly on night two, but this one was more floral, toast, caramel…  I still don’t know if I’d pay nearly $30 for this wine, but I did enjoy it quite a bit and now really want to learn more about the use of acacia barrels.

Our final wine of the night was the Lovingston Winery 2010 Petit Manseng (≈$17).  This is another wine that’s been a perennial favorite at chez snark (see here and here).  This year’s offering is 100% petit manseng and has 1% residual sugar – although all the fruit flavors in this wine would make me think it was more like 2 or 3%.  Pineapple was definitely the dominant flavor, but apricot and mango were in there as well.  This wine is a fruit cocktail in a glass in all the best ways.  I just wish I had some curry to pair with this one.

All things considered, I think this was a great way to celebrate seasonal change, and I got the impression that all involved had a good time sipping, chatting, tweeting, etc.  Thanks again to all the wineries, the wonderful trio at the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office (Annette, Amy, and Mary Catherine), and Frank (from Drink What You Like) and Paul & Warren (from Virginia Wine Time) – it was great to collaborate with all of you to make this happen.  Now it’s your turn to tell us, what are your favorite summer VA wines?

 

A Wine That’s The Sum Of Its Parts

I’m a huge fan of wine blends.  While I love being able to taste a single grape, there’s a reason why blends have been a staple of winemaking for centuries: a successful blend can truly be more than the sum of its parts.  Most of the blends at chez snark are red blends since that’s what we drink the most of, but a good white blend also has its place in our home. When I drink one of these blends, however, I always hope for a unified wine rather than a series of tastes each calling to mind a different grape.  When this happens, I tend to this of the wine as exactly the sum of its parts rather than more than the grapes could have been on their own.

A white blend we opened recently fell into the second category.  It wasn’t a bad wine, so I don’t want you to get that idea.  I enjoyed the bottle, and I’m fairly sure that those drinking it with us enjoyed it as well.  The wines that made up this blend just weren’t as seamlessly blended as I’d prefer.  The ’08 DelFosse Vineyards Reserve D’Oriane is a blend of sauvignon blanc (31%), chardonnay (23%), petit manseng (23%), and viognier (23%).

The wine offered a crisp apple nose with a hint of sweeter fruit at the back.  On the palate, however, I felt as though I was experiencing sips of a series of distinct wines.  It started with some crisp citrus notes up from that made me think of the sauv blanc.  I then noted some sweet/tart apple flavors which I attributed to the chard.  Some tropical and stone fruit favors came in on the finish thanks to the petit manseng and viognier (in my opinion).

This wine paired really well with the sauteed scallop and roasted vegetable pasta dish we enjoyed for dinner, so I’d definitely drink it again in the future, but I still wish the layers of flavors had come together a bit more.  Oh well, you can’t have everything…

 

A Taste of Summer at Christmastime

I am incredibly thankful to live in an area so rich in agriculture.  While we love Virginia wine, we also love lots of other things grown in Virginia such as heritage apples and grass fed beef.  Exploring the offerings at a great farmer’s market is a huge part of the fun of spring and summer for me.  On of the things I most look forward to is when the ripe stone fruits start to appear.  I grew up not really loving them because much of what you can get in the supermarkets is fairly tasteless since they are grown more because of disease resistance and their ability to withstand storage and shipping than for taste.  Fruit grown locally, however, really can taste better.  It’s actually fresh, and often the varieties available are far more favor rich than what you find in the big box stores.

In the winter, those fresh fruit flavors just aren’t as easy to find.  maybe you’ve got some cold storage set up for apples (we don’t), and maybe you’ve made some fruit sauces (which we have), but the flavors just aren’t the same.  Every now and then, however, you stumble across some flavors that take you right back to a summer morning at a farmer’s market stall.  That happened for me with a wine we opened during the holidays: the ’09 Lovingston Winey petit manseng.

On the nose I was getting some sweet tropical fruit notes along with some peach.  Those rich summer flavors really hit me on the palate, however.  I got peach, pineapple, and a ton of apricot.  The apricot flavor was so rich, in fact, that it made me think of a desert wine where the fruit flavors get so concentrated.  All this fruit made this wine taste even sweeter than it is (3% residual sugar), but this is no campfire wine.  It’s a taste of summer in your glass.

The wine also really surprised me by how well it held up to a few days in the fridge with just the screwcap it came with.  We forgot about the final glass and came back to it 4 days later.  It wasn’t the same bright wine it had been on day 1, but it was still really drinkable.  Lovingston continues to be among my favorite wineries in Virginia, and I’m already counting the days until I can try their 2010 petit manseng…

 

French for “Little Manseng”

With as beastly hot as it’s been (seriously, Virginia- come on!), we’ve definitely been cranking through the white wines instead of the reds lately. On yet another balmy Virginia evening, I opened the fridge to see a bottle of Lovingston Winery‘s 2008 Petit Manseng waving at me from the bottom shelf.

Unlike the Lovingston cab franc, this wine lived up to what we remembered. There’s a little bit of floral on the nose, with some sweet fruit and a little minerality on the palate. There’s 3% residual sugar, but it’s really well balanced. The wine is sweet, but still refreshing.

This petit manseng restored my faith in Lovingston’s wines. When it comes to this one I am, as the French would say, un big fan.

 

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

Grape Envy Guy and I recently spent an evening enjoying a fire on our patio.  These evenings often include a bottle of wine, and this one was no exception.  This time we decided on the 2007 Sugarleaf Vineyards Petit Manseng.  We bought this bottle last summer when we first visited Sugarleaf.  It confused us a bit, so we wanted to spend a bit more time with it to figure out how we really felt about it.

I wasn’t getting much in the way of a nose from this wine; of course we were drinking it out of acrylic wine glasses that make it hard to get a good swirl going, so take this for what you will.  There was, however, a light floral aroma with, perhaps, a hint of apple and/or pear.  On the palate, I got some generically floral and spicy elements along with some of the apple/pear elements from the nose.

FYI, according to the Sugarleaf website (which very helpfully contains information on their older wines), this wine is a blend of 85% petit manseng and 15% vidal blanc.  It doesn’t contain any information on residual sugar, but if this wine wasn’t completely dry, it was darn close.

To be honest, up to the point when we bought this wine we hadn’t had much petit manseng.  Since then, we’ve had more of it and have found other offerings we prefer, but this was fine to enjoy while sitting around a fire.  I just didn’t love the balance of flavors in this wine.  I also have absolutely no clue what food to pair with this, or really any other, petit manseng.

What petit manseng do you recommend?  What food pairing do you think we should try the next time we open a bottle?