A large amount of residual sugar makes me dizzy. Dessert wine tends to remind me of childhood cough syrup albeit with new and improved flavors. I hated that god awful faux cherry elixir. When the New York Cork Report gets together once a year to taste the best New York State has to offer, I sit the sweet flight out. On tasting menus in fancy pants restaurants, I bargain away my last wine pairing in the name of ‘something sparkling.” The nuance of late harvest anything is generally lost on me. Is the aversion in my head? Bias left over…
Posts Tagged“vidal”
The Sweet Hereafter
By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Escarpment Correspondent One of the coolest parts about living in an area with a burgeoning wine region has to be the fact that you get to literally watch history unfold. Of course, some history takes place outside in the kind of cold that burns your lungs and freezes your eyeballs, but when I regain feeling in my fingers I’ll be able to look back on January 3 of this still-new year as the date that marks the first local harvest of ice wine grapes at not one but two local wineries. When temperatures dropped into the…
WTN: Standing Stone Vineyards Smokehouse Dry Vidal (Finger Lakes)
Vidal (or vidal blanc) is a hybrid grape that doesn’t get the respect it deserves — at least when it’s done well. No, it’s not as rich and complex at a well-made, balance chardonnay and it doesn’t have the bright elegance of riesling. But, as far as white hybrids go, it’s among my favorites. Vidal is perhaps best known for it’s role in some delicious late harvest and ice style wines from Canadian and upstate New York producers. But, with high acidity and medium body, dry renditions can be tremendously refreshing and food friendly. Standing Stone Vineyards NV Smokehouse Dry…