Winemakers Face Off in the Squared Circle, Everyone Wins

I’m sure there are lots of super creative ways that I could approach writing posts to share my TasteCamp experiences with you, but I have to admit that I’m having trouble coming up with any of them.  Given that, I’ll leave that to other bloggers and will just take a fairly linear approach.  I’m also not going to try to share every wine tasted and every detail shared.  Instead, I’ve decided to focus on who the VA wine participants were and what stood out to me.  Please know that if I don’t explicitly talk about a wine it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.  It may be a wine I didn’t get around to tasting, or it may have been a wine that just got lost in the shuffle.  I tried to swirl, sip, spit, and note-take (sorry, I just couldn’t make the alliteration work) throughout the weekend, but there was a lot going on.

Anyway, TasteCamp started off at Boxwood Winery, and the did a wonderful job of welcoming everyone. In fact, it turns out they do things even more seamlessly than I thought since they had to change everything at the very last moment due to a lack of cooperation from mother nature.  Anyway, we were all greeted by Rachel Martin, executive VP, and Adam McTaggart, winemaker, along with a glass of the ’11 rosé.  As I’ve come to expect from Boxwood rosés, it was light, crisp, and refreshing, and I found it enjoyable to sip as I mingled with other attendees as they arrived in advance of lunch.

Over a wonderful lunch catered by Ayrshire Farm, I got to know some of my fellow attendees, and we all learned the big news about Boxwood starting to be open to the public.  Boxwood pulled out the big guns from the library for wines with lunch – they poured both the ’07 Topiary and the ’07 Boxwood.  Both of these wines have integrated well in the years since I first tasted them, and they’r both drinking really well right now if you happen to have any you’ve been hiding from yourself.  I’d say that the Boxwood could still handle another couple of years, but the Topiary is a wine I’m planning to drink within the next year or so.  The 2010s we had at the grand tasting after lunch weren’t doing it for me, however, so I’m glad I’ve got some of their previous vintages to tide me over for a while.

After lunch and a tour of the barrel cave, something we had to miss on our tour of the winery since our visit coincided with the arrival of a hurricane and the winery having to run on generator power (thereby blocking the entrance to the cave), we headed out to the crush pad for the Friday grand tasting.  In addition to Boxwood, the wineries pouring a few of their wines were Ankida Ridge Vineyards, Annefield Vineyards, Barboursville Vineyards, Blenheim Vineyards, Gadino Cellars, Glass House Winery, Hume Vineyards, Pearmund Cellars/Vint Hill Craft Winery, Rappahannock Cellars, Veritas Vineyards, and White Hall Vineyards.  All the winery representatives did a great job of sharing their wines, the stories behind their wineries, and the passion that fuels the VA wine industry.

Hume brought 3 new to us releases, so it was nice to get a sneak peak of them, I particularly enjoyed their new viognier, but we were told that there’d be 1 or 2 more new releases in the coming weeks, so we think we’ll hold off on a visit until then.  I also liked the viognier brought by White Hall (all stainless for those of you who don’t like oak in your viggy) and appreciated the sneak peek at their soon to be released ’10 petit verdot.  My visit to the Annefield station reminded me that we need to get back to southern VA, and since they might be having a non-harvest party since they lost their crop to frost damage, that seems like a perfect time for our visit.  The Blenheim rosé also grabbed my attention, the warm afternoon made it seem particularly refreshing, but I also noticed Kirsty Harmon’s “screwcap” ring – I so want one,and I bet Jordan Harris is jealous!

Barboursville deserves some credit for bringing an ’02 viognier and an ’05 cab franc from their library so that we could see how VA wines are ageing.  The viognier was particularly interesting.  It had darkened in color and become slightly nutty.  Since this was a viggy that saw no oak, I thought it was interesting that they’re exploring how it ages.  Kudos for the experimentation – it also showed me that I do tend to like my reds earthier and aged rather than young and fruity.  I generally enjoyed the offerings from Veritas (’11 sauv blanc, ’11 viognier, ’10 vintner’s reserve, ’10 petit verdot) and learned that they’re doing a lot of planting.  Clearly we need to find a time to catch up with Emily, their winemaker, and learn more about what they have going on.  Finally, the Ankida pinot noir continues to integrate and change as it spends more time in the bottle.  I’m still not quite ready to open the bottles I’ve got on my rack, but I encourage you to check it out if you can find a bottle.

In closing (we’ll have more next week, however), I just want to say that I was amazed at how many owners/winemakers greeted us by commenting on how much they love our post titles.  Kudos to Grape Envy Guy on that one as it’s 100% him.  Of all the ways to make an impact in this world, apparently ours is destined to be titles that break every rule of SEO optimized titles to help blog traffic – I can live with that.

 

 

“These Wines Are Affordable and Make Me Feel Like Jaime Lannister at a Family Reunion” Blusters Tasting Room Patron

It’s been quite a while since we’ve been back to White Hall Vineyards for a tasting.  We had no particular reason for staying away.  We enjoyed the wines we tasted well enough, and we found the value for money to be pretty darn good as well.  Some places just make a big impression upon our first visit, while others don’t.  We’d been meaning to get back for quite a while, and we finally made it happen.

We found a tasting menu of 7 wines (with 5 more for sale).  Our tasting started with the 3 dry whites, the first of which was the ’08 chard.  It was the wine of the month when we were there, so it was on sale for $12 instead of the typical $15. Half of the wine saw time in oak while the rest was in steel.  I noted floral vanilla, melon, and light citrus notes.  I found it a solid wine, but given my lack of love for chard, it should be unsurprising that it didn’t ring my bells.  We then moved on to the ’10 pinot gris ($18).  It offered a crisp nose, and I noted some minerality.  I’m guessing I got pretty chatty while tasting this wine, so I took bad notes – sue me.

Wine #3 was the ’10 gewurztraminer ($20).  I’m generally skeptical of the ability for this grape to be successful in VA, but I did enjoy this wine.  It offered an orange spice nose with rosewater, cloves, and cardamom being specific flavors I noted on the palate.  The first red wine was the ’09 merlot ($15).  The nose was smokey plum and there was a ton of fruit on the palate (plum, cherry, and berry).

The ’10 cab sauv ($15) was next.  It had a really tight nose, but I noted ripe cherry, cedar, and spice on the palate.  We closed out the reds with the ’09 petit verdot ($18).  This wine had plenty of fruit along with a touch of spice.  I’d best describe it as jammy cherries with some tobacco.  The tasting ended with the non-vintage Sugar Ridge White ($12), a blend of 80% petit manseng, 12% muscat, and 8% gewurztraminer.  It was a basic lightly sweet white sipper, but it had a nice floral nose with some spice on the finish.  I was surprised to learn that it had 3.5% residual sugar since it didn’t taste that sweet.  I’m guessing the acid from the petit manseng is a big part of the reason for my surprise.

I’m really glad that we made this return visit.  I still say the quality for price is amazing here.  We’re going to make a concerted effort to make it back in 6-9 months so that we can get more familiar with White Hall wines.  help keep us honest – if you don’t hear us talk about them, call us out and remind us that it’s time we plan another visit.

 

A watered down experience

Regular readers will recognize that Grape Envy Guy and I don’t always agree on the wines we taste (or even the wines we buy).  While our palates have become more similar over the years we’ve been tasting together, I think that has more to do with the fact that each of us now enjoy a wider array of wines than we initially did (and my determination to force my partner to drink the wines that I enjoy rather than the crap he used to think was great 😉 ).  Regardless, sometimes one of us wants a bottle that the other isn’t particularly interested in.  Occasionally, this will be a wine that get’s opened when the other is out of town or just not interested (or wants to drink from their own special stash).  Other times, we’ll share the bottle and see if we both react to it the same way we initially did.

The ’08 Vin Gris from White Hall Vineyards was one of these wines that I wasn’t that interested in.  When I had it at the tasting room, I didn’t think it was a bad wine, it just didn’t particularly stand out to me, however.  We drink enough wine, and spend enough money on wine, that if I’m going to buy a bottle I want to be really intrigued or happy when I drink it.  Grape Envy Guy liked it, however, and we both wanted to expose ourselves to more dry rosés so we could start to figure out what we do and don’t like about them.  Given that it was on sale and White Hall credits one tasting fee towards each bottle purchased, the wine made it into the winery assault vehicle.

We recently opened it, and it still wasn’t working for me.  This wine is a blend of juice from 4 grapes, but no more details are provided on the bottle or the web.  The nose had the slightly sweet berry scents I associate with rosé (e.g., strawberry and raspberry).  It was definitely a dry rosé, however, and that’s the first thing that came across on the palate – of course I took my first sip when the wine was too cold, so the lack of any clear flavors was my own fault.  I did immediately pick up a hint of black pepper on the finish that made me think there was some cab franc in there.  Once the wine warmed up a bit, some of the fruit flavors started to come through, but the flavors were a bit muted and dull.  The wine also seemed watery to me (as though I’d thrown in a few ice cubes to keep it chilled and they’d melted – and no, I didn’t do that).  FInally, a hint of something slightly bitter came through on the finish from time to time.

Given the price we paid for the wine – it was fine, but I didn’t love it and don’t want to drink more of it.I’m also still trying to figure out what I like about the dry rosés that most interest me.  After drinking this one, it’s clear that I like a bit richer flavor and a bit more acidity.  At least I’m starting to learn something about what I should look for when I want to drink pink. 🙂

 

Local Wine at a Box Store Price

A lot of Virginia wineries are like a lot of the new homes I see. A lot of attention has been paid to the architectural details, the interior, and the furnishings, and the outside looks like they said “oh crap! We spent all our money on tile, let’s grab some plants at Lowe’s and call it done!” White Hall Vineyards, on the other hand, surprised the heck out of us. The grounds are simple, yet elegant and very clearly well thought out. I was completely enamored and spent some time hanging out in the front.

We were here to taste wine, though, so eventually we opened the door and went inside. They have quite a number of wines- more than I anticipated- so I’ll just hit the highlights.

What really struck me about White Hall Vineyards is that while they’re not a rockstar winery, their prices are very, very reasonable for the wines they’re making. The Breakheart Red is a very nice, basic red table wine at $9.99. The 2008 Vin Gris is a rose made from four different red grapes that I actually enjoyed (and bought). It had a strawberry nose and was surprisingly spice-laden on the palate, but what had me stunned was that it was on sale for $6.99 a bottle!

The ’07 Touriga was also an interesting wine. It was all about the big blueberry nose and flavors, and was in general way more fruit-forward than I’m used to in this grape. The ’06 Soliterre was their dessert wine offering, which was a slightly herbal, sweet (8% RS) blend of riesling, vidal blanc, and viognier.

If there was a miss, it was the ’07 cabernet sauvignon. I don’t generally object to oaked reds, but this one… ok, so in the third Indiana Jones movie they made a big deal of the fact that the Holy Grail would be carved from wood since Christ was a carpenter. Well, this wine was so “woody” to me that I felt like I was drinking from that cup.

White Hall Vineyards does a good job of making generally drinkable wines, and they’re priced right for what they are. Given the price point, if I needed to buy a case or two of wine for a party or reception I would feel good about buying local and getting some nice basic wines here.