Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Josef Vineyard provides 60 percent of the blend here; Magdalena, which winemaker Fred Merwarth considers the warmest of the Wiemer vineyards, contributes much of the rest. The combination produces an unusual depth of flavor in this ’14, propelling 5.2 grams per liter of residual sugar with an acrobatic grace, its pineapple richness spritzed with lemon, fresh and invigorating. A saline note keeps the wine focused and firm, connected to a zipline of acid, leading those tropical flavors effortlessly into a brisk citrusy finish. (850 cases)
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James Suckling
Because this doesn't carry a vineyard designation (it's a blend of 60% Josef, 35% Magdalena and 5% HJW) and the price is modest, it would be easy to think this can't be first class. However, it is one of the most elegant sweet rieslings made in the FLX in 2014 with aromas ranging from limes to passion fruit and papaya. The balance of acidity and grape sweetness is almost dazzling and the finish very clean and long. Delicious now, but this can age up to another decade.
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.
Increasingly garnering widespread and well-deserved attention, New York ranks third in wine production in the United States (after California and Washington). Divided into six AVAs—the Finger Lakes, Lake Erie, Hudson River, Long Island, Champlain Valley of New York and the Niagara Escarpment, which crosses over into Michigan as well as Ontario, Canada—the state experiences varied climates, but in general summers are warm and humid while winters are very cold and can carry the risk of frost well into the growing season.
The Finger Lakes region has long been responsible for some of the country’s finest Riesling, and is gaining traction with elegant, light-bodied Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc. Experimentation with cold-hardy European varieties is common, and recent years have seen the successful planting of grapes like Grüner Veltliner and Saperavi (from the Eastern European country of Georgia). Long Island, on the other hand, has a more maritime climate influenced by the Atlantic Ocean, and shares some viticultural characteristics with Bordeaux. Accordingly, the best wines here are made from Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The Niagara Escarpment is responsible for excellent ice wines, usually made from the hybrid variety, Vidal.