Winemaker Notes
The Evergreen Riesling combines mineral and slate with flavors of white peach and linden. This wine finishes with wonderful focus and a backbone of mandarin orange.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Though this is calculated at 1.5% residual sugar, it seems quite dry. You’ll like the excellent concentration and bracing minerality, with a mix of green berry and apple flavors. There are also nuances of spice and even a hint of caramel—it' a subtle wine with long-lasting flavors that extend into a dry, complex finish.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Efeste's latest collection begins with 2009 Evergreen Riesling. Light straw-colored, it exhibits a fragrant nose of mineral, baking spices, white peach, and tropical aromas. Just off-dry on the palate with lively acidity, this Kabinett-styled Riesling is ideal for drinking on hot summer days.
-
Wine Spectator
Silky in texture and lightly sweet, with pretty lemon, pear and floral flavors, hinting at pepper as this lingers nicely. Drink now through 2014.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
A large and geographically diverse AVA capable of producing a wide variety of wine styles, the Columbia Valley AVA is home to 99% of Washington state’s total vineyard area. A small section of the AVA even extends into northern Oregon!
Because of its size, it is necessarily divided into several distinctive sub-AVAs, including Walla Walla Valley and Yakima Valley—which are both further split into smaller, noteworthy appellations. A region this size will of course have varied microclimates, but on the whole it experiences extreme winters and long, hot, dry summers. Frost is a common risk during winter and spring. The towering Cascade mountain range creates a rain shadow, keeping the valley relatively rain-free throughout the entire year, necessitating irrigation from the Columbia River. The lack of humidity combined with sandy soils allows for vines to be grown on their own rootstock, as phylloxera is not a serious concern.
Red wines make up the majority of production in the Columbia Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon is the dominant variety here, where it produces wines with a pleasant balance of dark fruit and herbs. Wines made from Merlot are typically supple, with sweet red fruit and sometimes a hint of chocolate or mint. Syrah tends to be savory and Old-World-leaning, with a wide range of possible fruit flavors and plenty of spice. The most planted white varieties are Chardonnay and Riesling. These range in style from citrus and green apple dominant in cooler sites, to riper, fleshier wines with stone fruit flavors coming from the warmer vineyards.