Category: Wine

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McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate Riesling

Grape: Riesling

Region: Southeast Australia

Vintage: 2006

ABV: 12%

Maker: McWilliam’s, ???, Australia (owned by ???)

One of the great aspects of wine is something called terroir.  Basically, this means that the wine reflects, in some way, the place in which it was grown.  The vine takes up different nutrients in the soil, it reacts to the climate and the weather, etc.  This has an impact on the grapes, and thus on the wine.  Certain grape varieties simply grow better in different places, and don’t do well in other places.

Riesling is a grape that was traditionally grown in Germany, Austria and Eastern France, and now has been grown sucessfully in the Northwestern and Northastern U.S. and Southern Canada.  It is late to bud (good in places with late frosts) and does well in moderate climates like those around the Rhine and Mosel rivers in Europe and the Finger Lakes and Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest in North America.

When one thinks of cool, moderate climates, the country of Australia does not come to mind.  Neither does the state of California.  I’ve sampled a couple California Rieslings with the thought that if they’re growing it there, surely it can’t be THAT bad.  Both times I was proved wrong.

When I saw this Australian Riesling in a grocery store bargain bin I thought the same thing.  Sure New South Wales has an average July (winter) high of 60 degrees, and January (summer) high of 95 degrees (compare the same for Strasbourg, France and Traverse City, Michigan), but they wouldn’t grow it or sell it if it wasn’t half bad!

It actually wasn’t half bad.  It was all bad.  When a first opened the bottle it was just kind of dull, and lifeless, like the fruit-flavored water my wife enjoys.  But the longer it sat and the more it opened up, the worse it got.

The nose is remiscent of state park shower stalls: an earthy combo of lake water and dirt with a faint hint of urine.  On the palate it’s weak and limp, like watery lemonade made from artificially flavored powder.  The finish is sharp, with notes of gasoline.

Some of McWilliam’s reds have gotten fairly good reviews online.  Maybe they’re ok, but as for the Riesling, terroir really does matter.  Avoid at all costs or serve to someone you despise.

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Ecker-Eckhof Grüner Veltliner

Grape: Grüner Veltliner

Region: Wagram, Donauland, Austria

Maker: Ecker-Eckhof, Kirchberg am Wagram, Austria

Non-Vintage

ABV: 12%

Grüner Veltliner (nicknamed GruVe) is a grape with a mysterious history.  According to wikipedia it has been connected to the Traminer grape and a mysterious grape found in an ancient, overgrown Austrian vineyard.  At any rate, it is grown primary in Austria and the Czech Republic.

There are GruVe wines at all sorts of price levels and levels of age-worthiness.  This one is on the lower end, but still quite good.  When I first opened the bottle, I had to re-check the bottle to make sure I wasn’t drinking sparkling mineral water.  There is a good deal of fizz in this wine, not too far off from the young Portugese wine called Vinho Verde which is often a little “lively” as well.  The minerality is really what dominated the wine at first.  I felt like I was chewing on a piece of limestone.

The bottle is a liter bottle, so I naturally didn’t drink it all at one sitting.  After a day or so in my fridge, it began to settle down a bit.  The minerals retreated and a grapefruity acidity sauntered into the gap.  Now it tastes more like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc than a Vihno Verde, albeit a young Sauv Blanc.  At any rate, an enjoyable wine, but I’m not sure if I would buy it again.  If you like a stoney wine, though, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it more than I.

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Pelee Island Winery Late Autumn Riesling

Vintage: 2007

Grape: Riesling

ABV: 12%

Region: Pelee Island VQA

Maker: Pelee Island Winery, Kingsville, Ontario

Yes, Canada does produce wine.  Most of it is in southern British Columbia or southern Ontario.  In Ontario, the Niagra penninsula, between lake Ontario and the Niagra river.  Pelee Island is the southernmost point in Canada.  It is an island in Lake Erie south of the Pennisula known as Point Pelee.  It’s a unique enviroment, being an island in a large inland body of water.  It is are famous for ice wine, but Pelee produces an impressive array of table wines as well.

The wine is light gold.  Three years in the bottle no doubt contributed a great deal to its present color, that’s is close to the upper limit for Rieslings.  The nose is rich, heavy on the apples and apricots.  It’s fairly heavy on the palate, too, for a Riesling.

 But when I first opened the bottle, the sweetness of it shocked me.  Since it is labeled as a “Late Autumn Riesling” I expected it to be sweet, but this is a different kinda sweet.  It tastes like there has been sucrose, table sugar, added.  This is not a rare thing, it’s even done in Riesling’s home turf, Germany, but it tends to be something of a distraction.  This is done to sweeten up wines that may not have had enough time to fully ripen on their own, a chronic problem in places like Canada and Northern Europe, even for a late bloomer like Riesling.  Nevertheless, after a sit in the fridge overnight, this sugary sweetness has disapated (or I’ve gotten used to it) and it now seems to be much more drinkable.  The apple has taken the lead, though, Paula or Gala apples specifically.

Overall, not a bad wine for drinking on its own, if you have a bit of a sweet tooth.

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St. Julian Pink Catawba

Maker: St. Julian, Paw Paw, Michigan

Grape: Catawba

Region: Lake Michigan Shore AVA

Catawba is perhaps the most American of all wine grapes.  It was one of the most commercial grapes in the 19th century.  Its domain was the eastern U.S.  Ohio’s sparkling pink Catawba was once regarded as America’s finest wine.

The wine industry in the East, and the Catawba was almost destroyed in the late 19th century when the railroads made it possible for California wine producers, growing European grapes, to ship their wines to East.  Many things were tried, but by the time of prohibition, the Eastern wine industry already had at least one foot in the grave.

Starting in the 1970s with the Farm Winery movement, the Eastern U.S. has been able to raise its wine industry from the dead.  But many places in the East, like New York, are now almost exclusively growing European grapes.  The Catawba has found its home in the midwest, though, in many places that are too hot or too humid for the finicky European grapes.

In my mind, St. Julian’s Pink Catawba is the standard.  It is less pink than it is a pale orange.  The nose is tart, with that strong scent and flavor described as “foxy”.  Foxiness is that tangy taste unique to American grapes.  It is that flavor that Americans love in Concord grape juice and grape jelly, and Europeans despise in anything.

On the palate it is much lighter than the nose would have you believe.  Full-bodied and tart, but still sweet, it is above all, refreshing.  Hardly anything tastes better on a hot, sweaty summer night in the midwest than a cool glass of Catawba.  If you don’t like this wine, you’re unamerican.  Or European.