Eroica Single Berry Select (375ML half bottle) 2007
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Chateau Ste. Michelle winemaker Bob Bertheau and Mosel winemaker Ernst Loosen craft Single Berry Select in the traditional German Trockenbeerenauslese style and is one of the few TBAs in North America. This is an ultra rich, concentrated yet elegant wine with intense aromas of orange blossom, honey and sweet spice. Appealing flavors of ripe pineapple and honey lead to a long, luscious finish.
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Wine Spectator
Rich and unctuous, thick in texture but polished and refined, this deftly balances its pear, pineapple, tobacco and tea leaf flavors against pinpoint acidity. Shows depth and amazing length.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
For thoughts on Chateau Ste Michelle’s uniqueness and recent evolution, consult my extensive April, 2013 text designed to introduce recent tasting notes. The Ste Michelle-Loosen 2007 Riesling Eroica Single Berry Select is far more interesting, mannerly, and winsome than its 2008 counterpart. Aromas of smoky black tea, truffle, honey, orange marmalade, and peach preserves anticipate the complex flavors that emerge on a palate uncannily poised between textural creaminess and honeyed richness on the one hand and levity and refreshment on the other. The brown sugar and raisins of the 2008 are absent here; instead, spice and citrus rind invigorate, while salted caramel mingled with honey and citrus juice serves for saliva inducement in a long finish. This should be worth following for well more than a decade. This was a warm growing season with heat spikes early-on, but as the terrifically successful dry version of Eroica from the same year also seemed to suggest, its what happens in the late innings that really counts.
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Launched in 1999, Eroica is a labor of love for two of the world's great Riesling producers. One from the Old World, Dr. Loosen estate of Germany, and the other from the New World, Chateau Ste. Michelle of Washington state. An intermingling of Old and New World philosophies and technique enables the crafting of an extraordinary Riesling from Washington state grapes. Named for Beethoven's Third Symphony, Eroica reflects not only its variety and site, but also its heritage: bold and forward from its Washington roots, elegant and refined from German inspiration.
The first five vintages of Eroica Riesling (1999-2003) were named to Wine Spectator's "Top 100" list.
"I have long believed that a Riesling revival would have to start with a prominent New World winery like Chateau Ste. Michelle."
- Ernst Loosen, Dr. Loosen estate
Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.
Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.
Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.
Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.
"Surely this is Horse Heaven!”
Its wide prairies and rolling expanses led an early pioneer to proclaim that the region looked like “horse heaven,” and as a result, the area was appropriately named. Horse Heaven Hills is in south central Washington state, geographically bound on its northern border by the Yakima River and in the south, by the larger Columbia River.
Its proximity to the Columbia River contributes to a variety of climactic factors that dramatically affect its grapes. In particular, an increase in wind from changes in pressure along the river, which flows from the cool and wet Pacific Ocean, inland to Washington’s hot and arid plains, creates 30% more wind than there would be otherwise. These winds moderate temperatures, protect against mold and rot, reduce the risk of early and late season frosts, diminish canopy size and toughen grape skins.
The vineyards bordering the river are on steep, south-facing, well-exposed slopes, with well-drained, sandy-loam soils. But the soils of the appellation are diverse throughout, ranging from wind-blown sand and loess, Missoula Flood sediment, and rocky basalt. Horse Heaven Hills has an arid continental climate with elevations ranging from 200 to 1,800 feet.
The first vines of the appellation were planted in 1972 in an optimal spot now referred to as the Champoux Vineyard. Today it remains the source of some of Washington’s most desirable and expensive Cabernet Sauvignons. In fact, the appellation as a whole boasts many of Washington’s top scoring wines. Its primary grape varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay and Riesling.