Blended Cultures and Blended Wine: Santa Fe, New Mexico

I don't understand Santa Fe, nor do I particularly want to. 

Before I arrived to kill a couple days, I had heard tell about this strange city in the mountains of New Mexico.  Okay, I heard it was a cool place to visit, but nobody ever really explained why.  It was always left rather vague.

Here is why Santa Fe is kind of a cool place: the culture.  Few cities in this country have a culture... or at least a culture that is anything other then American.  Most cities in this country look and act like every other city in this country, with a few exceptions:

New Orleans: .... trust me.  You know when you are in New Orleans.

Portland, Oregon: And you can smell when you're in Portland.

New York: ... Or so I am told.  Honestly I've not spent any time there.

I would add Santa Fe to this list.  There's something about this place.  It's not quite Mexican.  It's not quite Native American and it definitely isn't American.   .... It's just Santa Fe in all it's quiet glory.

 And that's the best way I can describe Estrella Del Notre Vineyard.  There is something at work here that couldn't really exist anywhere else.  And that is just kinda cool.

Vino De Manzanas:

A wine made from apples on the property.  This wine had a cidery taste that you would expect, but it was much cleaner and much drier.  It was fairly light, just a little sweet and quite refreshing.

Symphony:  So apparently, this is an actual varietal of grape.  Some mad scientist in California cross-bred a couple grape varietals over the course of a couple decades and finally came up with Symphony.  The result is a wine a that reminds me a little of muscat, but totally different.  It has the grapefruit and pear fruit inside, but there’s also a dry, floral quality to it especially at the end.  It’s a lighter refreshing wine that is truly awesome.

Pino Noir: When you drive up to the winery you see rows upon rows of grape vines.  These are the Pino grapes.  I picked up some black cherry, and some light floral qualities on the nose.  The palate contained some black cherry, and some raspberry.  It was light for a style, but nice.

Barbera: Another grape varietal that I had not heard of. This one apparently came with the first monks that established monasteries in the region almost 600 years ago.  Fun fact, New Mexico is actually the first American wine region.  It had a very light aroma, but it’s palate was earthy, woody with a generous helping of pepper spice and a slightly floral finish.

Rio Nambe: A blended wine.  The first thing I thought when I put my nose in was… it was hoppy.  I smelled northwest citrus hops.   It didn’t make sense, but there was a citrusy, floral quality about this wine.  The flavor had lots of floral earthy notes to it with just a hint of spice.

Tinto Del Soul: This was actually something they had from Santa Fe Vineyards, but what the hell.  This was noticeably sweeter then the previous wines I had up to that point.  I picked up some caramel and some raspberry among the pepper and spice that filled this one.

Holy Moly:  Here’s were, in my opinion, true Santa Fe culture begins to take hold.  It’s a zinfandel infused with chocolate, almonds and chili pepper.  The result is a wine that’s smokey and spicy on the nose.  The flavor has some chocolate covered cherry with a generous, but not overpowering spicy background that arrives and disappears like pepper in a beer.  

Pear Wine: We get a little into the desert category here, or as much as I am willing to go.  It was sweet just on the edge of being syrupy.  Pear and apple flavors were, of course, very very strong.  It was sweet but manageable and rather nice.

Tilting at Windmills: Los Alamos, New Mexico

There’s something kinda hidden about Los Alamos.  Over sixty years ago the greatest scientific minds were assembled here to work on the Manhattan project.  To this day Los Alamos has the National Lab and then there’s the Santa Fe Institute, a gathering of some of the greatest minds in the world that come together to try and figure out.. well..  everything.

What I am saying here is that there’s a lot of brain power in Northern New Mexico.  Sometimes, those great minds… they get bored.

The Ron is the head distiller for Don Quixote.  He first became interested in fermentation and distillation while a freshman in college.  He built his first still at the time which was quickly confiscated by campus police who didn’t believe his story that it was all for ‘reasearch purposes.’

On a trip to Ukraine, Ron met his wife, Olha.  She came from a proud distilling line.  Her father, a merchant marine couldn’t afford to pay his sailors so he offered them the best vodka and food as long as they sailed with him.

Ron’s engineering know how combined with Olha’s heritage and Don Quixote was born in the mountains of Northern New Mexico.

They have two locations in the area, one is Los Alamos and one outside Santa Fe. The downside is they only let you try five things at a time, which, given a really impressive selection is a bit torturous.  They had more then five… anything.  More then five red wines, more then five white wines and more then five liquors.  Hell, they have two grappas which I will get to later.  So I guess, what I am saying, there’s more to them then what I am about to say, but I really can’t say much.

Microdistillaries are a hard-to-find commodity in this world, so I stuck primarily with the spirits, although I did try a couple of the heavier reds.

Cabernet: The first thing I was told about their dry reds is that they were going to be sweeter then I was used to.  This was because the cuisine of the area tended on the spicy side.  Dry, peppery, oaky, these are great qualities in a red wine, but they just don’t go with the food in the area.  So, fair enough.

The cab had a port wine, raspberry and dark cherry aroma and I got a pretty much identical sensation in the flavor.  It was slightly sweeter then similar wines, but not overly so.  Dry red wines often leave a person wishing for a steak.  This is not the case here.  In a way the wine stands on its own.

Merlot: Very similar aroma to the cab.  I picked up a little more pepper on the palate and it was a little drier, but other then that I really couldn’t detect a huge difference between the two.

Okay enough with the wine.  It’s distillation time.

Bourbon: Made from blue corn and wheat.  Blue corn is used in a lot of cuisine here and has a slightly sweeter flavor.  I didn’t get that as much from the bourbon.  It was incredibly smooth, though.  There was some leathery, oaky notes.  It was slightly sweet but I don’t know if I could pick it out from any other high-quality bourbon.

Grappa: The story of grappa, as I was told, was that this was a peasant drink in old Italy.  As soon as the rich folk had used the grapes for their wines, the peasants would gather the rest, get what juice they could and distill it down.  They had two types at Don Quixote, aged and un-aged.  I went with the un-aged since I was told it wasn’t as sweet.  Light, semi neutral spirit.  I picked up some light port wine and cherry flavors along with a nice smooth character.

Gin: This was far and away my favorite.  Even those who consider gin, as one of my friends would put it, "pine trees and ass," would have to give this creation some props.  It’s made from blue corn again with New Mexico herbs and spices including juniper (of course) Pinon Chamisa Sage and lemons.  The result is this wonderful aroma like the desert after a rainstorm.  The astringent juniper berries are mellowed by the slightly spicy, slightly sweet concoction with just a hint of citrus in the back. Unlike the bourbon you can pick up quite a bit of the extra sweetness from the blue corn here.

The Bros: Iowa

As I said last week, we're going to talk more about Iowan wine this week.  In that post I went on a little diatribe where I described the merits of Iowa wine.  If you truly loved me, you should have already known about it, read it, committed it to memory and possibly formed a small cult using that paragraph alone as the central tenant of it's teachings!

Sorry, about that.

My point is, that Iowa wineries are a type.  This week's guest very much fits in to that classification.  Smith Brother's makes wine mostly from local varietals including the popular Norton grape, a variety more or less unheard of outside the Great Plains.  They offer fourteen different varieties and blends.  I tried a fair amount staying clear of the sweeter wines for this trip.

Norton-Cynthiana: This variety has a very distinct cherry, raspberry jam aroma.  The flavor is very fruity, lots of plum and cherry with a little pepper mixed in there as well.

Frontenac: The aroma on this was leathery with a little pepper.  There were lots of earthy, woody flavors here mixed in with a little fruit and a touch of pepper.

Big Bang: A red blend of several local grapes.  I almost enjoyed the aroma on this wine more then the flavor and the flavor was excellent.  The aroma was this light floral strawberry blend.  Lots of light fruit on the flavor; strawberry and pear mostly.

Concord: Honey apple aroma here with lots of berry apple fruit flavors and just slightly sweet.

Encore: We're changing it up here.  Up to now it's been almost exclusively red wines, but I did give some whites a try.  This was another local blend with a citrusy-apple nose here.  The flavor profile is something a friend of mine likes to describe as a breakfast wine.  It has a light, slightly sweet fruity flavor featuring strawberry, apple and grapefruit.

Sweet Edelweiss: Sweeter wine with an apple pear aroma and flavor.  It's sweet, but lacks that heavy- syrupy texture.  Makes for a nice summer evening sipping wine.

South of the 80: Iowa

It's back to the green hills and tulip beds of Southern Iowa again, kids.  I don't get to sample as many of the wine areas in the country as I would like and Southern Iowa is definitely one of the stranger places I tend to find myself wandering aimlessly.  But I do and I entertain myself somehow.

Last year I marked two wineries off the ol bucket list.   So, once again, consider this an addition to the greater saga that is Southern Iowa wine country.  This week, it's Tassel Ridge.

The thing that is attractive about wine in this area is that it is rather unique.  There are a couple of varietals that are only found in the Midwest and there are places that have built a business around selling the kind of stuff grandpa used to make in the barn.  Rural probably isn't the right right adjective, but that's as close as I can get.  There are very few cheese platters around and some guy named Guston isn't pouring the samples, but Napa Valley doesn't have anything like Piestegal.  Seriously, I think you could run your car on that stuff.

Tassel Ridge really doesn't fit in with this group.  They make fine wine, don't get me wrong, but they miss some of the local feel that other wineries in the area positively ooze.  The vast majority of their wine is made from juice they have shipped in from other states and their entire product line consists of nearly forty different styles and blends of wine.   Selection is nice, but... holy crap on a cracker.

They were, I will grant them, very nice about sharing though.  I didn't try all forty since I didn't feel like wandering punch-drunk through a corn field this week.  But I did run down their line of dry reds.

Pizzeria and Pasta Too!: A wine designed to pair well with... well, I assume you can guess.  Lots of dark fruit aroma.  It has a unusual peppery, fruity almost hoppy flavor among the dark cherry and plum.

Zinfull Red: Peppery, fruity aroma.  Lots of both in the flavor as well, slightly tart and very, very dry.

American Syrah: Floral blackberry nose.  I picked up pepper, leathery and woody flavors along with something almost... minty?  Maybe not the right adjective, but there was something herbal in the back there.  Fairly complex and enjoyable wine there.

2008 Iowa St. Croix: This is one of the few wines made with grapes grown at the vineyard. Not sure about this one.  The aroma was kind of unpleasantly skunky smelling.  The peppery, woody flavors underneath were fine, but there was something off about the smell.

In the Dark: A blend of Merlot, Syrah and local St. Croix grapes.  The aroma had a light, sweet strawberry and honey feel to it.  I pick up some green apple, strawberry and cherry in the palate.

American Merlot: This one had a strong floral aroma to it.  The flavor was intensely fruity; lots of plum and black cherry there with a hint of black pepper.

2009 Marquette:  The second of the two wines made with actual Iowa varietals.  I've run into this type before along with it's fairly unique caramel, fruit and molasses aroma.  The flavor runs much the same way, cherry and plum among the caramel with just a hint of pepper in the back.

Iowa Cuvee' 512: A blend of local grapes and a touch of Muscat.  It was still fairly young when I had it so the flavor still had quite a lot of tartness to it.  The floral, fruity aroma was very promising.  Among the tartness, I picked up some pair and a little citrus.

I've got one more to add to the list next week, so strap in for that.  Until then, cheers!

Stories Told: Ariziona Wine Country

I'm kind of retracing some old steps this week.  The second post in this blog featured a trip to Arizona wine country.  Since I happened to be in the area, I thought I would take a minute to restock my dwindling wine cellar and add another location to the list.

Well, it was meant to be a quick trip.  It turned out to be a lot more fun then I had planned.  I pulled up to the winery just as the owner, Barbara Predmore just happened to be walking by.  She greeted me enthusiastically and showed me to the tasting room where three other women were have a glass or two themselves.

It's always fun when the vintner happens to be available to talk wine during the tasting.  For obvious reasons the tend to be very passionate about their trade and their business.  I've learned so much about wine from these sessions it's one of the main reasons that going out to the wineries for a taste is such a worthwhile endeavour.

This was different.  Barb sat behind the counter and held court about any number of subjects.  Everything from caesar salad dressing to supermarkets, the State of Arizona and, of course her winery.  "This is my Shangri-la.  We work very hard, but it's our dream and we're living it."

Alcantara winery is the largest winery in the Northern Arizona wine region.  That being said, in terms of output, Alcantara is still a small, intimate operation, a fact that Barb almost relishes.  "It's still a small winery.  It might be the only thing about me that is small."  Then she laughed.  Barb has a laugh makes it almost physically impossible not to laugh along with her.

So the four of us sat down and laughed as wine was poured and Barb talked about the finer points of the wine world like how the movie Sideways boosted the quality of Two-buck Chuck Merlot, the difference between red and white wine as far as image and the evils of the supermarket wine rack.

(Sideways caused people to gravitate to pinot noir grapes leaving high-quality merlot on the vine; apparently people perceive red wine as a more sophisticated drink; the harsh lights of supermarkets degrades the quality of wine.)

So let's talk wine.  Of the sixteen wines they had available, I was able to sample seven.  It should also be noted that, with the exception of the Sangiovese, all of the grapes for these wines were grown at the winery itself.  Also, it should be noted that, yes, I focused on the reds.  It's a matter of personal preference, although they had a fairly large selection of lighter whites as well.

Mesa Blanca: This was the one white I had during my visit because I'm much more a dry red fan and Arizona wine country is the Mecca of dry reds.  This was kind of a nice blend with a pear, peach aroma.  It was fairly tart with grapefruit and pear flavors.

Syrah: I picked up some raspberry and strawberry on the nose.  The flavor was peppery and fruity and quite tart, but it was mentioned that this wine was a little young.

Confluence IV: This blend turned out to be my favorite.  It has a very subtle berry and pepper aroma.  The flavor was exceptionally smooth with raspberry, cherry and peppery notes.  It finishes just slightly dry.

Merlot: Aroma is earthy and peppery with a little dark fruit.  The fruit is more pronounced in the flavor with some added leather flavor and finishes very dry.

NV Grand Rouge- Zabibu A Amani: Another quality blend of six grape varietals.  I picked up some plum and a little pepper on the aroma.  It was a very smooth wine with cherry, leather and pepper flavors coming and going through the palate.  Very good, complex wine.

Zinfandel: I'd like to stress, not a white zinfandel.  As Barb said, "friends don't let friends drink white zin."  Here a zinfandel pours dark red with a light pepper aroma.  It's just slightly dry with some dark cherry, leather, and floral flavors.

Sangiovese: The aroma had some cherry and some vanilla flavors as well as lots of peppery notes.  The flavor is a wonderful mixture of cherry, leather and vanilla.

Off the Beaten Path #2

This is the second stop on my tour took me to the tiny Iowa town of Selma.  And it is small.  I honestly believe that there may be more different types of wine at this winery then there are people in the town.

Crane Winery, specializes in wines, "that grandpa used to make."  After visiting the winery I got the sense that Grandpa was a renegade fermenter.  The kind of man who separates the world into two groups, fermentable and fermentable with some added effort.  In other words, a man after my own heart.  It seems that wines are a kind of ongoing experiment.  At one point I asked the owner who was pouring me samples of wine if one of them was a blend. She smiled and shook her head, "Nope.  I there are no blends here.  If I blended wine, then I would have to remember what I did."  Grandpa would be proud.

So there is quite the selection here, and I'm not about to cover them all.  I don't think I even want to cover all the wines that I sampled.  Suffice to say that most of them tasted about how you would expect.  They were sweet with the heavy fruit flavors of whatever happened to be in the fermenter at the time.  For the most part, they were sweet but not overly-syrupy.  I'm not a fan of the sweeter wines, but most of these were pretty good.

Wickfields Whisper: A dry Norton like the one I found at Whispering Pines. This one was a whole lot better, though.  I'm not sure if it just had more time in the bottle, but the unique character of the Norton grape really came out in this one.  Earthy sweet caramel aroma.  The flavor is woody with cherry and blackberry fruit.  For those that like their wine sweet they have the Lockhouse, which is the same wine with residual sugars that clear the highest bar in street shoes.

Piestegal: Is a German-American word that evolved out of the Amanda colonies in Eastern Iowa for the Rhubarb plant. It comes from the English 'pie' and the German 'stengel' or stalk.  Piestengal is a Rhubarb wine that comes out of a long German heritage in the area.  This particular example had quite a kick to it.  There was a heavy alcohol flavor marking this wine as drink that would render a man horizontal after a couple glasses.  It poured almost clear and had some light tart and earthy flavors.  I'm still not sure whether I liked this or not and I think I would have been unconscious before I figured it out.

Restless Summer: Strawberry wine.  I don't think I have ever had a wine this sweet in my life.  Even the strange alcoholic Kool-Aid hell brews my fiance insists on bringing home have nothing on the residual sugars of this.  More functional as an ice-cream topping than as a drinking wine.   I mention it here because I'm interested to find out what fans of incredibly sweet wine think of this.

Chocolate Covered Cherry: Exactly what it sounds like, a cherry wine with cocoa added.  The cherry flavor hits right off the top, but it slowly melts away leaving a bitter, unsweetened chocolate flavor lingering in the back of the palate. Fun if only for the sheer novelty.

Off the Beaten Path Part 1: Iowa

I've got another wine tour that I've been meaning to write up.  This one takes us through the wilds of Southern Iowa where wine has developed a culture fairly unique to the area.  In the past I have lumped wine tours like this into one long post that took me several hours to finally compile and complete.  So, like the breweries, I've decided to split them up by individual winery and see how I like that format.
First stop on the tour is Whispering Pines Winery.

The Norton: Most of the wines produced by Whispering Pines focus on the sweet side of the palate.  "That's just what people like out here," said Steve Tucker who owns the winery with his wife Becki.  "We are experimenting with some drier wines, but the sweet ones are the ones people really like."
The Norton is one of those experiments.  It is a wine made from the Norton grape that is very popular Iowa and Missouri.  This particular wine was very young when I sampled it at the winery.  The aroma was yeasty, the flavor was very tart.  It gave me the impression of a wine that would be good eventually, but not now.


Village Red: This is a blend of two varietals, the St. Croix (75%) and the Froch (25%).  This is also one of their dry selections.  It is also a little bit tart with some spice notes and some pepper.  Like the Norton, I think it will improve with a little aging, but this was still a pretty good wine as it was.

Autumn Blush:  Moving into the sweeter wines now, this is a semi dry blush that the winery describes as a 'picnic wine,' although a good friend of mine would describe it as a 'breakfast wine.'  It is light in color and flavor and has a nice, refreshing quality.  There is a lot of grapefruit flavor here with some hints of light berry flavors and a crisp finish. 

Lakeside Red:  This is a heavier sweet red wine made with Concorde grapes.  The flavor is big and intensely fruity with some rich caramel notes in there as well.

Backroads Red: Similar to the Lakeside with a french Steuben grape added for it's peppery qualities.  This wine was heavy and sweet bordering on syrupy.  I didn't pick out a lot of spice, mostly I got a lot of dark fruit, cheery, raspberry, plum, etc. with a heavy caramel richness.

As I came to find out during my tour, fruit wines are big in this area. In the next post I will feature a winery who's claim to fame is an extensive collection of fruit wine.  Whispering pines had two:

Ramblin Rose: Tasted like a sweet cranberry juice.  Simple, but delicious.

Blueberry Bliss:  A blueberry wine mixed with a type of chokecherry that adds a lot of peppery spice to sweet, carmelly flavors of the blueberry.

Wine of the Carolina Coast: South Carolina, North Carolina

This post is a little odd.  The Southeastern United States actually has an impressive number of wineries.  Driving back home from this area of the country is always a bit of an exercise in willpower as a seemly endless stream of billboards advertising nearby wineries pass by on the Interstate.  But all of that is mostly inland around the Appalachians.  In the coastal area choices are a little harder to find, but not impossible provided you are armed, as I was, with Google maps, a GPS device and a determination that boarders on a mental disorder.  With that in mind:
 
Boardwalk Winery:


Boardwalk Winery

The first stop is in a tourist-aimed area known as the Boardwalk.  It has all the trappings one would expect; restaurants, bars, a small amusement park and various other trappings for out-of-towners.  The winery itself is located in a docked boat... or at least a building that is built to resemble one.  Apparently it is against state law in South Carolina to offer free samples of alcohol, so wine tasting costs $5 here and they let you pick six different wines to sample.  Their wine list is quite expansive at first glance.  A closer look reveals that they offer the same wines in various levels of sweetness.  For example, you can buy a bottle of the Blueberry wine in three different sweetness levels:  Semi-dry, Semi-sweet and Sweet.  The latter probably should be followed by an insulin shot, just to give you an idea of the relative scale we are talking about.  Unless you like your wine so sweet that it boarders on alcoholic Kool-Aid, Semi-Sweet is probably as far down on that scale you will want to go.  Here were my selections:

High tide: Carmel and dark fruit aroma.  Lots of spicy pepper and smokey flavors and tobacco.  It lacks a lot of the body of a really good red wine, but it's not bad.  I was informed that the grapes are grown on old tobacco fields and that was how the grapes developed their smoky tobacco flavor.  I'm sceptical, but it's a good story so I will keep it.

Merlot: A young, un-oaked Merlot.  Very strange.  Has almost none of the usual flavors associated with a Merlot.  It has a very fruity aroma.  Lots of raspberry, blueberry and dark cherry flavors.  Almost none of the dryness that is usually associated.  Keep in mind that this is this wineries version of a dry wine.



Gewurztaminer (Semi-dry): Citrus herbal peach aroma.  This is sweeter again, but I kind of enjoyed this wine.  There was it there was some peach and citrus and I picked up some herbal notes that made me think green tea or something.



Resling (Semi-dry): Citrus pear and grapefruit aroma.  Like the others, this was mostly sweeter with lots and lots of fruit.



Blueberry (Semi-sweet): Made with South Caroline blueberries with a little sugar added for sweetness.  A bit of caramel and sour fruit accompany the blueberry flavors in this wine.



Endless Summer (Semi-sweet): This one is a blend of mango and peach wine.  This one borders on a dessert wine. The flavor is pretty self-explanatory.  I wish I could talk about the levels and levels of flavor that I noted, but they just aren't there.  Peach and mango... simple.

Mango: There is a medium and a sweet version of this and I tried the sweet version.  And it is sweet. It pours like syrup and it tastes like someone took a slice of mango and dipped it in sugar.    It would probably be wonderful drizzled over ice cream, but by itself... just not for me.



Carolina Winery:

This Winery is so similar to the Boardwalk Winery, that I thought this was the Boardwalk winery location in North Myrtle Beach. They both share the same specialty in sweet and fruit wines, they have a similar system of adding sugar in different grades,they are both located in tourist shopping and dining centers in each city and they even give the sheet of information about their wines look strikingly similar.  They do offer slightly different wines, but that's about the only difference.

Merlot: I can't be sure without doing a side by side taste test, but this tasted exactly like the wine at Boardwalk.



Amythist: This did not appear at the other winery, this is a blend of Merlot and elderberry wine.  Lots of fruit flavors with just a hint of pepper and some herbal notes that made me think of mint or peppermint.



Syrah: Smokey fruity and peppery.  It had a lot of same tobacco notes that I noted in the High Tide.



Elderberry: I've never actually had an elderberry, and I kind of assumed some of the flavors I couldn't identify in the Amethyst was a product of this fruit, but I'm not so sure now.  This had a sour cherry, raspberry flavor with some caramel sweetness.



Crescent Moon: A chardonnay, peach wine blend.  It had a very crisp refreshing mouthfeel.  Peach more or less dominated the flavor profile, I didn't taste any acidic or buttery notes I usually associate with chardonnay.



Southern Belle: Peach and plum wine mix.  This had a very creamy, rich mouthfeel that had me thinking about peaches and ice-cream.  The plum wine added some body and some caramel and dark fruit notes to the peach wine.


La Belle Armie:

La Belle Armie Vineyard
It was time to head farther North and get out of the cities and into wine country proper... such as it was.  This particular winery had it's own eccentricity, though. It's not unusual in my experience for a winery to specialize in a particular style, but this winery specializes in a single grape varietal.

Anyone that didn't grow up in the South has probably never heard of the Muscadine grape.  They are a type of grape native to the Southern United States and is really the only grape they can grow in the climate around the coast of South Carolina.  They are good eaten strait of the vine (or so I am told, I would need to be here around September to find out first hand) or made into a variety of different wines.

In total they make eight different wines using the Muscadine varietal.  I sampled four of them.  The all share a similar flavor profile: sweet pear or peach flavors combined with earth and nutty notes, and vary mostly in color and sweet vs dry.  For example: The Southern Gentleman is a drier rose' as opposed to the Goddess which has quite a bit more sweetness and a lighter color.  All four were fantastic, and defiantly unique.  It's hard to describe the unique flavor in words alone; it probably should be experienced to be truly appreciated.


Outside of their speciality, they do produce other wines as well.  I found myself so engrossed in the Muscadine, that I really didn't spend a lot of time with the others, but I did try a couple:

Heavenly Body: A dry red Cabernet. I picked up a lot of pepper, lots of dark cherry and acidic qualities.

Poor Bastard: La Belle's Merlot.  Lots of spice, acid, dark fruit and an incredibly dry finish.  Still doesn't have the body of most merlot and it has considerably more sour fruit flavor than I am accustomed to. 



One additional interesting fact about this vineyard, you're going to hear the word, "bitch" thrown around a lot, mostly by the two women behind the counter talking about wine and the incredible health benefits of muscadine grapes.  Although to be fair, the word is probably more accurately written as, "B.I.T.C.H"; as in Babes In Total Control of Herself (or Babes in Total Control of Him, depending on the situation.).  That's just a single example of the 'education' I received at this winery.

Silver Coast Winery:
I decided to visit one more location while I was in the area.   I continued even farther North and  crossed the border into North Carolina.  It's been an interesting trip.  They do a lot of things differently in the South and I suppose that it's only fitting that wine be one of those.  However there was something familiar about Silver Coast.  Maybe it was the fact that my desire for a full-bodied dry red wine was finally satisfied.  Maybe it was the fact that they kept the residual sugars below a level shared by most cola products.  Although that is not to say that it wasn't without it's little surprises:



Seyval Blanc: A crisp, semi-sparkling white wine. I picked up citrus, melon and grapefruit notes.  It is a very smooth wine with a sweet, refreshing finish.



Rose: A blend of several different varietals, I picked up sour fruit, citrus, strawberry.  Pretty good balance between acidic and sweet flavors.



White Merlot: A bit of a misnomer, the wine is actually closer to a rose' or a blush in terms of color.  This wine picks up these qualities because they only allow the wine to sit on the rinds and seeds for a little over a day before they are removed.  The result is a lighter, crisper version of a Merlot.  It still has many characteristics, I picked up some pepper, leather and dark fruit notes, but it lacks a lot of the dryness and body associated with a merlot.



Georgia Merlot: A lot like the white merlot but more so.  This one comes out with a lot of body and finishes a lot drier.  It packs in a little more peppery flavors as well as some chocolate and cherry flavors.



Touriga (Cape Fear Blood Wine): Remember the surprises I was talking about?  Here it is. I am finishing with this one, and it might be my favorite of the entire tour.  The blood grape is a varietal that originates in Portugal.  It is so named because unlike other grapes that have a clear juice when the grape is first squeezed, the juice of the blood grape is dark red.   The wine has a lot of earthy qualities along with smoke, black pepper plum and cherry and finishes very dry.

Still have a couple of dispatches to go from Dixieland before I head back up to Yankee territory.  Until then, cheers!

Great Lakes Wine: Michigan Wine Country

Well... back to Detroit.  Last time I visited this city I found myself exploring a bit of the brewery culture in the outlying suburbs.   This time, due to time constraints I couldn't explore more of the Detroit area, but on my way out of town I found a great opportunity.  Driving east on I 94, I soon found myself in Michigan wine country.

Obviously this blog is about beer.  Beer is in the title, the vast majority of the posts have to do with beer and the word 'hops' probably ranks in the top 10 word count.  This is about all sorts of local drinking culture through this country.  So we will take a break from the industrial world of brewing and the vast urban decay of Detroit and head out to the serene countryside for the agricultural world of wine making.

Lawson Ridge Winery:

This was the first of two smaller wineries that I visited.  First, a word about the wine tasting experience in Michigan.  The wineries I visited allowed a free sample of up to six wines from their selection with some small costs for some of their special releases.  The staff at the tasting rooms were all friendly and made for a great afternoon out in the wilds of Eastern Michigan.

Out of the highlights I will start with the Cherry Red.  This is a fruit wine made from the local cherries.  It was perhaps a little sweeter than I normally like, but it was served with some dark chocolate.  When combined with chocolate, this wine provided just a hint of tart that cut through the chocolate and added layers to the flavor.

My personal favorite was the AZO semi-sweet red.  It was one of those wines that has an aroma that is as wonderful as the flavor itself.  It is just the right amount of sweet with dark cherry and strawberry flavors.  Their Two Handed Red was pretty good, but lacks the body and the dryness that draws me to red wines.  Their chardonnay is un-oaked, so it had a lot more light citrus and pear flavors, but lacked a lot of the smoothness.

Cody Kresta Winery: 

I drove deeper into the forests and farmlands of Michigan.  My next stop was a red farmhouse off a small country road.   As compared to Lawson Ridge, this winery featured a lot of drier, tart wines.  They have a selection of rose's that range from very sweet to almost bone dry.  I tried something in the middle of the road and really enjoyed it.  It had lots of light fruit flavors and a light honey dryness at the back of the palate that makes this a perfect drinking wine.   Also of note was a blueberry fruit wine.  It had just the right amount of berry sweetness that makes this really enjoyable.  Those that prefer a sweeter fruit wine probably wont enjoy this as much, it's surprisingly dry and complex.  Lastly, was introduced to the Traminette grape.  This is a varietal that grows only in this particular area of the country.  (There seems to be some debate on this.  The staff at my next stop claimed Traminette was a blend and not a grape in and of itself.)  The wine was something that I like to call a 'breakfast wine,'  slightly sweet with light citrus, grapefruit and light fruit that just seems like it would go really well with some toast and eggs.

Warner Vineyards:

As I drove back towards the Interstate on my way back onto the Road, I stopped in Paw paw, the unofficial capital of Southeast Michigan wine country.  This is the second-oldest winery in the state and probably one of the biggest.  Their selection of wines is so expansive that being forced to pick six out of the list is almost cruel.  I had their Traminette as well, it was similar to Cody Kresta's although I think it might have been just a little more tart.  

Throughout my tour I had a hard time trying to find a really nice, heavy red wine.  Michigan wines seems to stay on the lighter, sweeter side when it comes to their reds.  Warner came through, however, with a decent merlot and a blend they call Veritas.  Veritas has just the slightest hint of sweet, dark fruit that adds to the big body and spice of this wine.

One more wine I want to mention from Warner, the Grapes of Love.  This is one of those overly fruity sweet wines that, lets face it, is more or less tailor made for a girls night out.  I tried it for two reasons: First, it was their best selling wine, so I was curious.  Second, I think the winery's description says it all, "A silky smooth white wine with great legs and excellent body."

Things I admire in a.... er.... wine?

Cheers

Blood into Wine: Arizona Wine Country.

While driving into Phoenix, I got a chance to talk briefly over the phone with the head of the Arizona wine growers association.  She gave me a little lay of the land, where to go to find the wineries, information, etc.  Then she said, "Did you know, the lead singer of Tool has a winery out in Jerome?"  

I did not know that.  Then again, I haven't kept up with Tool for the last few years... or ever for that matter.  The woman continued:

"Oh yes.  He moved out here a few years ago and he's been doing a lot for Arizona wines!"

I've said it before and I will say it again, you find weird stuff in the desert.

Since I opened with Maynard James Kennan, I'm going to come right out and confess that I was not able to make it out to his winery in Jerome.   I'll have to save that for my next visit.  His partner in crime, Eric Glomski, is the wine maker out at Page Springs and I was able to stop there.  While I was working my way through their 'Big Red' wine list I happened to see the movie poster for  the documentary, Blood Into Wine.  The film stars Kennan and Glomski and talks about Arizona wines, the wine industry in general, Kennan's transition from a rock star to wine grower in the high desert and the rag-tag group's fight to prove they can produce wine that's just as good as that produced by the Evil Empire of Napa Valley, (Complete with evil music!)   I watched the film when I got back from Phoenix and it is pretty excellent.  It's available on Netflix and I found it on several Internet sites, and it's well worth checking out.   On a side note, if someone has access to a welder, they need to give me a call.  Apparently those brass knuckles / corkscrew that Kennan is wearing in that poster don't actually exist.  We could make a fortune. 

Page Springs Cellars

I think this was my favorite of the three wineries I made it out to.  That's saying something because Arizona's primary wine styles are all heavy, dry red wines.  Those that know me, will also know that I am a fan of the Merlots, Syrahs and similar styles.  At Page Springs, the clear stand out was a red table wine called Vino De La Familia.     It had some slight pepper flavor balanced with some dark fruit.     A close second was their Vino del Barrio which was a blend of... well everything as near as I can figure.   I also had the chance to taste one of Kennan's creations, the Cupacabra.  It's a blend of several different varieties like the Vino del Barrio.  It was good, but I didn't like it as much as the other two.

Oak Creek Winery

In stark contrast to their neighbor, Oak Creek does very little blending in their wines.  The only blend I tried was their 'Fire' and their other offerings were much better.  Their stand out was their Syrah, a full bodied wine with a slightly spicy, smoky flavor that made me want to go out and barbecue some ribs.   They also had a port that I really enjoyed.  It was lighter than most ports and didn't have that thick, syrupy consistency that many others have.   They have a cream sherry that I didn't get to try myself but another group that had come in before me were describing it as damn near a sexual experience, so it might be worth a taste next time.

Javelina Leap Winery

This was my final stop on my trip.   The flagship wine here was their zinfandel, a word that congers up images of a sweet, pink wine that is a favorite of my fiance mostly because of it's two primary characteristics, being both sweet and pink.  Here it's a completely different animal.  It was still fairly sweet to a point, but had a lot more body, a little spice and some dryness to help its balance.  They had a Merlot that was pretty good as well, but the zinfandel was a clear stand-out.

That's all from the state of Arizona for now.  But I would like to end today's post with a thought.  Most of you know when I lived in Idaho I was a fan of the local wineries.  But, much like the wineries in Arizona, they were known only by a select few.  But if Arizona taught me anything it's that they need to find an Idaho celebrity to start making wine.  Me, I vote for Bruce Willis.   For one, I don't think he is doing anything at the moment.  Secondly, seriously, who is going to turn their nose up at the Yipee ki-chardonnay (mother fucker)?  I'll leave you with that thought.  

Cheers!