I’ve had several discussions with Peter Oldak, owner and wine maker of Jewell Towne Vineyards. He has a good heart and soul for what he does. He likes to make what he calls “honest wines”. Oaking and smoking wine is not his style, and in this age or formulating for wine scores, it seems that Peter is blissfully oblivious to that trend.
Peter uses all stainless steel fermentation and storage. Many of his wines are “American table wines", and I get excited about his whites and I think they are worth talking about. This is the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border we are talking about. This is ideal for cold climate grapes.
If the whites are worth mentioning, Peter expands his skills and makes a killer port and a kick-butt Vidal Ice Wine 2005. Some cold and snowy night, I’ll share the port with you, promise.
Tonight’s wine is his Vignoles table wine not to be confused with the 2007 Vignoles which we will pop open later.
Vignoles Jewell Towne Winery
New Hampshire Table Wine
Alcohol: 11.0%
Price: ~$10 to $12
Color: Golden-yellow
Intensity: Moderate for a white
Aromas: Honey, pear, straw, butterscotch, apple, litchi,
Flavors: Lemon, melon, honey, butterscotch, pear, guava, tangerine, hint of tobacco
Body: Moderately full
Acidity: Crisp
Sweetness: Sweet
Finish: Moderately long
Summary: Mmmm, an interesting combination of tropical, citrus and butterscotch. It has a very round mouth feel, but also a cleanness, with explosive flavors. It is 25 deg F outside, not what I think would be white wine weather, but I’m just enjoying this. As with many Jewell Towne Wines, it is on the sweet side, think lemon sorbet. Nice and refreshing.
I heard Taster B say this would go good with spicy Asian food. I think I’m happy to have this on its own, just as an aperitif. I’m thinking about a warm fire with a cold wine and good music going. Just turn off the tube, close the laptop and enjoy.
2 comments:
sounds like a nice wine, and at a really good price. Interesting you got butterscotch and no oak program was used. I wonder if it went thru MF, but since you said it was still nice and crisp I doubt it.
nice Review
John
I was not expecting the butterscotch qualities of this wine, but there they were! We have a bottle of the 2007 vintage, meaning that they are grapes that Peter grew himself, right from the very rows I photographed. It will be cool to see what turns up.
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