[wine] WA State Rieslings

FYI. Merritt Olson from Charles Smith Winery will be pouring at S. Lyndale this afternoon. NYT article on WA State Rieslings. Cheers, Jim ----- Forwarded message from Mitch Zavada &lt;Mitch(a)southlyndaleliquors.com&gt; ----- To: jellings(a)me.umn.edu From: Mitch Zavada &lt;Mitch(a)southlyndaleliquors.com&gt; Subject: Last week of wine sale + cool tastings Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:19:19 -0500 Precedence: bulk X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted by DNSRBL, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0 (smtp-relay.enet.umn.edu [128.101.142.227]); Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:18:10 -0500 (CDT) X-Spam-Score: 0 () HTML_MESSAGE,SPF_PASS X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.57 on 128.101.142.227 To view this email online, paste this link into your browser: http://e2ma.net/map/view=CampaignPublic/id=32025.2461044145/rid=bcd960d0b7e… ___________________________________ Hello everyone- South Lyndale Liquor's Fall Wine Sale is winding down, but you still have four days to take advantage of the best wine sale in the Twin Cities! Tonight is a great night to pop in as we will be hosting Merritt Olson of Charles Smith Winery ( http://e2ma.net/go/2461044145/2238550/84701827/32025/goto:http://www.charle… ) from 4-630 for a free tasting of their awesome wines. Charles Smith [also of K Vintners] is a leader in the new wave of Washington state producers. Click here ( http://e2ma.net/go/2461044145/2238550/84701828/32025/goto:http://www.winesp… ) for a Wine Spectator article on Charles Smith and his wines. Charles Smith wines to sample: 2007 Eve Chardonnay 2007 Velvet Devil Merlot 2007 Boom Boom Syrah 2008 Kung Fu Girl Riesling 2006 K-Vintners Millbrandt Syrah 2006 K-Vintners Clifton Syrah Finally, the next meeting of the Grapevine Wine Club ( http://e2ma.net/go/2461044145/2238550/84701824/32025/goto:http://southlynda… ) is Wednesday, October 14, 7-9pm at the Park Plaza hotel in Bloomington. We will be featuring the wines of Jorge Ordonez with Master Sommelier Sarah Floyd. Jorge Ordonez is the top of the tops when it comes to Spanish wine importers and the evening will be filled with great values as well as a couple of treats to finish. As always, the tasting is free for members of the Grapevine Wine Club and just $15 for visitors. Grab a couple of your Spanish wine-lovin' friends and come out for a great night of wine tasting. Thanks and we'll see you soon! 5300 Lyndale Ave S. | Minneapolis | MN | 55419 ___________________________________ forward this email to a friend http://e2ma.net/map/view=Forward/ID=32025.2461044145/rid=bcd960d0b7eafa9964… This email was sent to jellings(a)me.umn.edu. To ensure that you continue receiving our emails, please add us to your address book or safe list. manage your preferences ( http://e2ma.net/map/view=Manage/signupId=54209/id=32025.2461044145/rid=bcd9… ) opt out ( http://e2ma.net/map/view=OptOut/signupId=54209/ID=32025.2461044145/rid=bcd9… ) using TrueRemove(r). Got this as a forward? Sign up ( http://e2ma.net/map/view=Join/signupId=54209/mailingId=2238550/acctId=32025 ) to receive our future emails. <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td align="right"><font color="#999999" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">powered by</font></td> <td width="58"><a href="#"><img src="http://e2ma.net/userdata/images/powered/powered_dk_grey.gif" alt="emma" width="58" height="12" hspace="5" vspace="0" border="0"></a></td> </tr> </table> September 30, 2009 WINES OF THE TIMES Riesling Gains a U.S. Foothold By ERIC ASIMOV FOR years sommeliers and certain wine writers shouted themselves hoarse preaching the virtues of riesling. In a white-wine world dominated by top-heavy chardonnays, saucy sauvignon blancs and vapid pinot grigios, they prescribed riesling as a wine that had everything. The riesling grape was versatile, producing wines that could be bone dry or syrupy sweet. Rieslings could be profound, delicate and sometimes both. They were rarely heavy or oaky, and they were great with food. Riesling advocates continued to preach even though nobody seemed to be listening. And then it happened. While pinot noir, abetted by the popular film .Sideways,. was soaring in popularity, riesling was quietly gaining ground, too. In the last five years riesling has secured a neat little niche for itself in stores and on restaurant wine lists. Now, it seems riesling is being grown everywhere. It comes from Germany and Alsace, of course. More rieslings are arriving from Austria, which is great news . I love them. I.m even seeing a little riesling from Italy. Australia is bullish on riesling, New Zealand calfish, and even South Africa.s in on the act. Let.s not neglect the good old U.S. of A. California, for example, has more than doubled its planting of riesling in this decade, to almost 3,100 acres in 2008 from about 1,500 acres in 2000. Washington state.s riesling acreage increased to more than 4,000 in 2006 from about 1,900 in 1999. New York, which had just under 500 acres in 2001, now has an estimated 1,000, 90 percent of them in the Finger Lakes region. Given the surge in popularity and production, it seems worth asking: is riesling the new sauvignon blanc? Well, more on that later. First, it also seems worth asking just how good is American riesling? To answer that question, the wine panel recently tasted 20 bottles, restricting ourselves as best we could to dry riesling. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Beth von Benz, a former sommelier who is now a wine consultant, and Evan Spingarn, a riesling fanatic who works for David Bowler Wine, an importer and distributor. As usual in these blind tastings, we bought our wines retail from local wine shops and through Internet merchants. I can tell you up front that some of my favorite American rieslings, from Smith-Madrone and Stony Hill, both in Napa Valley, were not in the lineup. Those wines are made in small quantities and rarely show up in retail shops. I.ve also tasted very good rieslings from promising but off-the-grid wine regions like Texas and Michigan. Those wines were not included either, as you essentially have to visit those regions to find them. We were left with rieslings from America.s four primary wine-producing states: 7 bottles from New York, 6 from Washington, 5 from California and 2 from Oregon. Overwhelmingly, we favored the rieslings from Washington and New York. Five Washington rieslings made our top 10, along with four from New York and one from Oregon. The California rieslings were shut out, including bottles that I.ve liked in the past, like those from Trefethen and Chateau Montelena. The differences between those we liked and those we didn.t seemed vast. Florence was skeptical of the wines in general, saying she found very little sense of place in them. Evan agreed, saying the general level of mediocrity really made our favorites stand out. Beth and I were more pleased. My favorites showed clear mineral flavors and discernible riesling character, while Beth was even happier than I was. .Acidity and minerality drove through all,. she said, which is .refreshing and wonderful.. Another good thing about these rieslings was their price. All of them were $25 or less; 17 were $20 or less. Our favorite, the 2007 Eroica, is a collaboration between Chateau Ste. Michelle, the huge Washington winemaker, and Ernst Loosen, the eminent riesling producer from the Mosel region of Germany. The wine is made at Chateau Ste. Michelle from grapes grown in the Columbia Valley. Regardless of where the inspiration comes from, the wine is superb, graceful and tangy, full of mineral, peach and ginger flavors. It is not quite dry, meaning the wine has a bit of residual sugar in it, yet it was so balanced it didn.t taste sweet. Chateau Ste. Michelle.s ordinary bottling of riesling, made without the help of Mr. Loosen, was No. 6 on our list. Straightforward and pleasant, it lacked Eroica.s depth and dimension. At $20, the Eroica was the most expensive wine in our top 10. The least expensive, and our best value, was the 2007 Hogue, also from the Columbia Valley, which we rated No. 2. It was lively and refreshing. Like the Eroica, it was not quite dry, yet so well balanced that it seemed crisp. Next came another from the Columbia Valley, the 2008 Kung Fu Girl from Charles Smith. It was fresh, juicy and exuberant, though perhaps without the refinement of the Eroica and the balance of the Hogue. The trio of Washington rieslings was followed by two Finger Lakes wines that are almost annoyingly interchangeable. They were from the two leading New York producers, Dr. Konstantin Frank and Hermann J. Wiemer, and I can never quite decide which I like better. In this tasting, both bottles were from 2007, both were $18 and we awarded both two-and-a-half stars. I gave the edge to the Dr. Frank because it had a bit more of a mineral character than the Wiemer, though I.d happily drink either one. The 2005 Belle Pente from the Willamette Valley was the only Oregon riesling in our top 10, at No. 7. It was also the oldest bottle in the tasting, and it already showed a touch of kerosene, a pleasant sign of age in a riesling, but one you might wait another 10 years to find in European rieslings, which age far more slowly. Not that it.s fading fast . the wine was quite enjoyable. To answer the question I left hanging: no, riesling is not the new sauvignon blanc. It will never be as ubiquitous, yet I think its niche is secure. While American rieslings are not yet consistently good, they are improving. They offer a lot to like right now, and it seems clear that the best is yet to come. Chateau Ste. Michelle-Dr. Loosen $20 ... (Three Stars) Columbia Valley Eroica 2007 Tangy, succulent and largely dry with peach and ginger flavors. BEST VALUE Hogue Columbia Valley 2007 $9 ... (Three Stars) Crisp, balanced and fresh with aromas of flowers, minerals and ripe peaches. Charles Smith Columbia Valley $13 .. ½ (Two and a Half Stars) Kung Fu Girl 2008 Fresh and perfumed, with lively flavors of citrus, flowers and minerals. Dr. Konstantin Frank $18 .. ½ (Two and a Half Stars) Finger Lakes Dry 2007 Balanced and very dry; tropical fruit, citrus and mineral flavors. Hermann J. Wiemer $18 .. ½ (Two and a Half Stars) Finger Lakes Dry 2007 Graceful and zesty, with floral, tropical and citrus flavors. Chateau Ste. Michelle $13 .. (Two Stars) Columbia Valley Dry 2007 Light and lithe with herbal and grassy flavors. Belle Pente Willamette Valley 2005 $19 .. (Two Stars) Subtle floral and mineral flavors with a touch of kerosene, typical of an aging riesling. Mercer Yakima Valley 2007 $12 .. (Two Stars) Balanced with flavors of ripe peach and tropical fruit. Shaw Vineyard Finger Lakes 2006 $18 .. (Two Stars) Dry and floral with flavors of minerals and earth. Red Tail Ridge $17 .. (Two Stars) Finger Lakes Dry 2007 Balanced and integrated with aromas of flowers, minerals and citrus. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *