Viva Virginia Viognier!

The much anticipated pre-#WBC11 Virginia Viognier tasting has come and gone. Of number of lucky conference attendees were shipped six Viogniers from different Virginia producers for tasting during the virtual event. I was lucky enough to be selected and I am thankful to the organizers and participating wineries (listed with contact information at the bottom) for taking the time and offering up the product to help me get to know a part of the Virginia wine landscape.

I convened a small group (me + 2) at my house for the tasting, preparing some snacks with flavors and textures drawn from the notes provided for the event. We had cheese, fruit, a cold shrimp dip, crackers, bread and spicy chicken skewers to sample with the wines as we progressed through the tasting. We were by no means alone with many others tasting and Tweeting during the event.

I’ll share my notes on the wines next (in the order we tasted them), then offer the recipes I used for the snacks so the curious can try them for themselves. I haven’t seen any wrap-up posts from others yet, but I will update a list at the end of this post as they get published.

Horton Vineyards NV Sparkling Viognier

When this selection arrived I was intrigued as I have never had (not that I know of) Viognier in sparkling form.  After tasting it the question the group of us came up with was “how would we know it was made from Viognier if it wasn’t disclosed?” This isn’t a rookie question, we do have a bit of blind tasting experience, but more of one from the perspective that the wine didn’t evoke a Viognier sensibility to us in any obvious way. Does the fact that it was sparkling make that harder?

What we did find was more fruit in the nose that I am used to with sparkling wine, but I am sure this wine is of better quality than many I have had, so that doesn’t give it away for me. I also picked up a deceptive sweet sensation in the center, which I did enjoy. All of us found that the Dubliner cheese made the wine pop with more fruit and a crisper finish.

Overall I very much enjoyed this wine, but don’t really have enough experience with sparkling wines to put it any style context. There were no flaws I could detect, and I could see glasses of it disappearing very easily which votes it high for a wine to entertain with!

Blenheim Vineyards 2010 Viognier

I immediately noted that the nose reminded me of a subtle Muscat, with a perfume essence. In the mouth I picked up a woolly (another in my group said lanolin) essence much like a French Chenin. The acidity in the finish reminded me of a Sauvignon Blanc, and a picked up a touch of salinity. All together I was confused about what I was drinking and wasn’t sure I was tasting something with the desired composition. I let it breath a bit and came back to it and didn’t find a change. A second tasting today didn’t change my impression. I am going to take a guess that it didn’t travel well and may have needed some time to rest after its trip. I look forward to trying other wines from Blenheim next week when I am in VA.

King Family Vineyards 2010 Viognier

This wine has tons of fruit in the nose, including melon and peach. This wine presented the full body and balance I am used to in Viognier, and that I have only been able to produce once in my own wines, which made me smile. All of us picked up a little baking spice aroma, from the malo perhaps, and experienced a nice clean and crisp finish.

The cold shrimp dip was very assertive with this wine, but the flavor transformation was exciting to savor. The best pairing was the spicy chicken skewer which helped to focus the wine and bring out the acidity.

Barboursville 2009 Viognier Reserve

The shocking thing about this wine was the note that it had had 11 months of lees contact. That seemed like a lot to me, especially for a Viognier. The best description of this wine the group of us had was “old world rustic”. The intense acidity, yeasty undertones and light aromas were not expected, but not displeasing. Quite a few other Tweeters questioned if this wine was off, and it got me thinking that the trip might have taken this guy for a loop too. It didn’t seem to be put together. As it was I could see using this wine to pair with a number of white wine friendly dishes where the pairing act in itself wasn’t going to get a lot of focus. It pains me to write these things after only one tasting, but I am truly optimistic that I will get another taste soon and then might find more of what was sought after in this wine.

Cooper Vineyards 2010 Viognier

The initial impression of this wine gave me a sinking feeling. For I love Viognier, it is my favorite white wine. I have made it every year since 2007, and I have searched for my initial success ever since, and I love finding new ones to try. Oaked Viognier though makes me cringe. It just seems so unnecessary to do that to such a wonderfully aromatic grape. BUT, this wine is excellent! Only 40% of it was fermented in used barrels and the balance of it comes off better than I have ever experienced this treatment before. The baking spices in the nose are pleasing (makes me think of baking in the fall) and the peach and dried fruit flavors in the mouth were there and clear.

I paired this wine with the goat, Brie and Dubliner cheese, enjoying all of the pairings. With some strawberry and peach I got more fruit from and experienced the crispness of the wine.

Delaplane 2010 Viognier – Maggie’s Vineyard

We ended the tasting with this wine, and for me it ended up being my favorite. And that wasn’t because I was at home and had a buzz! This wine has the aroma, body, and flavors that I love in a Viognier! My summary description was “warm pecan pie”. It had just that right balance of nut, sweet and fruit (pear & ripe peach) that had me pouring another taste pretty quickly!

The notes indicate it is off-dry, which I think is an overstatement. It does have some sweetness, but not enough for me to classify it that way.

I tasted this with most of the snacks on hand, and it found that it went well with the spicy chicken skewer as the notes alluded that it might.

Now on to the snack recipes!

Cold Shrimp Dip

4 tsp minced fresh onion

1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

6 oz cream cheese, softened

2 Tbsp butter, softened

1 tbsp. mayonnaise

Dash of hot sauce

1 dozen chopped cooked medium-sized shrimp

2 tbsp. chopped dill pickle

1 ½ Tbsp dried thyme

Soak the minced onion in lemon juice; then mix with cream cheese, butter, mayonnaise and hot sauce. Mix in the shrimp, pickle and thyme into cheese mixture. Refrigerate for at least several hours. Serve on crackers or crusty bread.

Spicy Chicken Skewers

3 tbsp lime juice

3 tbsp canola oil

2 tbsp Tamari

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tsp red pepper (from tube)

1 pound chicken tenders

Mix all ingredients, except chicken, well. Place chicken in marinade, mixing to coat. Cover and marinate overnight. Soak wood skewers in water for 20 minutes prior to skewering the chicken tenders. Grill the tenders 3-4 minutes on each side. Serve immediately.

The participating wineries can be found online and on Twitter with the contact information below.

Horton Vineyards - http://hortonwine.com/ - @HortonWine

Blenheim Vineyards - http://www.blenheimvineyards.com/ - @BlenheimWines

King Family Vineyards - http://www.kingfamilyvineyards.com/ - @kingvineyards

Barboursville Vineyards & Winery - http://www.barboursvillewine.net/winery/ - @barboursville

Cooper Vineyards - http://www.coopervineyards.com/index.html - @coopervineyards

Delaplane Cellars - http://www.delaplanecellars.com/ - @DelaplaneCellrs

A huge thank you goes to the wineries, the folks at http://www.virginiawine.org/, and Frank from the DrinkWhatYouLike blog (@DrinkWhatULike) for involving me in the event.

This time next week I will be tasting and tweeting with 399 others in the heart of Virginia wine country!

Cheers!

Jason


Posts From Other Tasting Participants

BlogYourWine.com - http://blogyourwine.com/2011/07/16/virginia-viognier-a-tasting-part-one-of-two/
SuburbanWino.com - http://www.suburbanwino.com/2011/07/best-wine-post-ever-written.html

Award Winning Strawberry Wine

After this year's WineMaker Magazine Competition I will have won medals of all types (gold, silver, bronze) for my Viognier, Amarone and Strawberry wines since 2008. My Strawberry wine has been a special project based on a local product I knew I could source.

We talked a lot about Strawberry wine while I was on the conference trip and luckily we brought some to share. I introduced the topic when answering a question about how I processed fruit a whole bunch of times. I said I froze it and then let it defrost so I could crumble it into straining bags, easily extracting pits if needed. Excitement was shared many times at how useful this practical trick is.

The response to the wine was amazing and we thank all of your for it. I never expected this fun hobby would net me such awesome feedback. I wanted to share my recipe for this wine and my thoughts on what this year will hold.

This year will be year four for us making Strawberry wine, and the recipe has never been the same from one year to the next. Here is the list of ingredients for the first batch in 2009 from frozen fruit.

2009 Strawberry Wine

(6 gallons)

1 tbsp Bentonite prepared in hot water

20 lbs sliced strawberries (in straining bags)

1.5 lbs golden raisins (in straining bags)

12 lbs sugar

1/4 tsp KMeta

1.5 tsp Pectic Enzyme

5 tsp Yeast Nutrient

1 tsp wine tannin

10 tsp Acid Blend

1 pkg Lalvin D-47 Yeast

This was the wine I brought to the competition and that won the gold medal. I sulfite the fruit after it defrosts and pitch the yeast 24 hours later. The fermentation process is really like any other, you need to macerate the berry bags twice a day and then when you are done there won't be anything left. It fermented nearly dry and halted easily. I did back-sweeten it with some white grape concentrate but only a few percent total volume. But here is my problem. This was frozen fruit and it didn't look as nice. Here is the second recipe we made from fresh fruit. We know the color and flavor is better here but we over-sweetened it and it lacked balance. Bronze medal though!

2009 Strawberry Wine #2
(6 gallons)

25 lbs sliced strawberries (in straining bags)

12 lbs sugar

1/4 tsp KMeta

1.5 tsp Pectic Enzyme

5 tsp Yeast Nutrient

1 tsp wine tannin

10 tsp Acid Blend

1 pkg Lalvin EC-1118 Yeast

Over two weekend days in June 2009 we picked 38 pounds of berries at Sunnycrest Farms in Londonderry, NH. It was fun and Margot picked on me for making her work. All in good fun!

You will notice a couple of changes right away. No bentonite up front, no golden raisins, more fruit and a different yeast. The fruit broke down to about 31 pounds and 6 was reserved frozen until the wine was complete to be used in a strawberry sugar syrup to flavor the wine. Otherwise I added the routine of adding yeast nutrient 1/3 of the way through. This wine fermented similarly to the past years.

We drank almost all of it, excluding a sweetened version made as a dessert wine that needs some age. Nothing lost in all of it for sure.

For this year I think I will use some amount of white grape juice where I had previously used golden raisins, and leave the fruit quantity the same as the second recipe. I am not sure if I will switch the yeast again, but what I can tell you is that I will use Go-Ferm to rehydrate the yeast and a good nutrient at 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through the ferment.

The sweetening syrup should have one cup of sugar to every 3 cups of fruit or less to start. Some water or white grape juice can be used to liquefy the reserve berries. If you need more sweet then add more plain sugar syrup or white grape juice in a second round. In the end I would expect you might end up adding 5-8 % of the original volume back up to 6 gallons in flavoring, it really depends on how dry the berries ferment. My second batch needed less than 5% fruit and sugar. Without the sweetener the wine is like a very light rose with clear fruit but quite dry.

I hope I can produce another good drinker because we are so low on it we are worried there might be panic! I hope anyone who tries it the best of luck. This can be the best wine with a blue cheese topped salad on a hot day.

If you have questions about this recipe or other wine and food topics just drop me a line at jasonphelps@yahoo.com or leave a comment on this post. I look forward to meeting many of you again and happy winemaking!

--Jason

Weekend Update

Wine stories from the weekend.

The 2008 Strawberry, 2008 Amarone #2 and the 2009 Pinot Grigio paired well with the pig roast crowd. The Strawberry lasted longer than 3 minutes, but not by much. The rich Amarone was excellent with BBQ food.

The 2009 Strawberry and 2008 Viognier well very well received at Phil and Meredith's Pampered Chef party. The dessert synched up well with the Strawberry wine, which didn't last two hours. The 2008 Viognier has matured so well from an underwhelming wine early on. Good thing I haven't been swilling it.

The 2009 Pinot Noir went into the bottle today. It is a bit hot, but will mellow with some age. It is rich and not overly assertive and should age well.

A new batch of Bordeaux blend was started today. Anurag and I talked winemaking as we bottled one and kicked off another. If these are as good as the 2007's are now in 2011, we will all be very happy!