by Patrick Ogle

Chateau Grand Traverse, in Michigan, makes some excellent wines. Really. I am not kidding. People living in the area or who have traveled through may know this but this maybe isn't common knowledge. Ive had their gamay which was outstanding and a cab franc that I liked. I didn't write about either though and felt I was neglecting these fine Midwestern winemakers.

When I saw a bottle of their dry riesling I grabbed it.

The wine doesn't have the pronounced "petrol" scent most rieslings have but you won't mistake  for another varietal. I've never gotten this scent as really being "petrol" but I also have no other scent to use din describing riesling.

This wine seemed fruitier than some rieslings Ive had recently. However, the most recent rieslings Ive ingested have cost twice as much (or more) and been from Germany or Austria. This wine has different qualities. It is a different creature. It is also, mercifully different from the cheap West Coast rieslings you find in the super market too. This is dry with some viscosity and the high acidity you associate with riesling. It has some citrus and definite hints of pear. Good rieslings are excellent wines to pair with food and I kept thinking of all the things that would be delicious with this wine: seafood, Thai food, Indian food and even with your Thanksgiving dinner.

For $15 this is an excellent purchase. And this wine positively kills most of the other rieslings in its price range. It is a different style from the European versions and less cloying than some of the West Coast American versions.

Do not fear the Michigan wines! There are some bad ones but if you see "Chateau Grand Traverse"? Buy with confidence. I haven't had a bad wine from them yet.

by Patrick Ogle

Domaine Glinavos Paleokerisio Ioannina Semi Sparkling Orange Wine (2014) is a unique sparkling wine from Northwestern Greece (Epirus). The wine is made of the debina grape with a little vlahiko in the mix (the former is white and the latter red). It comes in a 500 ml bottle.

The smell made me think of vinegar but more than that there was something a little cider-like to the nose. There is no acetic acid taste to the wine (vinegariness). Paleokerisio has a little bit of sweetness to it and its effervescence isn't as pronounced as you would find in a Champagne. When you pour the fizz is pronounced but the fine bubbles are more subtle once in the glass.

There is an almost tropical flavor to the fruit--but this may have something to do with the sweetness. Sweet makes me think of RIPE guava and papaya and the like. There is a hint of tannin in this wine too and a wee bit of a bitterness in the finish, which is hidden by sweetness and effervescence, as the effervescence calms the bitter is a tad more apparent. Bitter isn't a bad thing in this (and many other) contexts with wine. Ive had people say they don't like "bitter" wines and what they are talking about, upon questioning, is tannins.

One of the reasons you (and I) haven't heard of debina is that it is a white that apparently oxidizes quickly and wasn't widely exported. Chatting with friends we came up with an image from antiquity of rowers on a ship yelling to each other;
"FASTER, FASTER, the wine is going bad!" These days packaging and shipping have improved. Vlahiko is a grape we will talk about more in depth soon. In the meantime you can find out more about Greek wines at www.newwinesofgreece.com.

An "orange wine" by the way is a white wine that is aged with the skin. Usually with whites the juice is separated from the skins quickly. With orange wines the skin is left in contact. You find these wines in Georgia (the country), Croatia
and Northeastern Italy with frequency. Other areas also produce them. They get their name from their coppery/orange color.

By Patrick Ogle

Beurer Wurttemberg Rose Trocken 2015 is a rosé that should find its place onto your summer table (if you can find a bottle). It is a blend of trollinger, portugieser, zweigelt and spatburgunder (aka pinot noir).

Trollinger (also called schiava grosso) makes a red wine that is so light in color that it almost looks like a rose. This rose is almost as dark in color as many trollinger reds. None of the other grapes are known for making particularly heavy wines.

The smell is like a grape jolly rancher--quite grapey. It is bright, has refreshing acidity and it is way up on the list of what you want to be drinking on a hot day. It is a rose that flirts with and acknowledges its inner redness but since the  wine is mostly  trollinger? This "redness" isn't too...well...too red.

There is a lot of dissolved CO2 here but it isn't sparkling but, even so, that gas leaves you with a wine that is quite lively. There is a slight vinegar taste here--acetic acid lurking well beneath the surface which adds a wee little bit of what you might, MIGHT call complexity to the wine. But it is hard to call this complex. It is an ultimately drinkable summertime wine that is interesting without being off-putting.

by Patrick Ogle

I was hesitant to write about this Sicilian blanc de noir made from nerello mascalese; I haven't written a word about a red nerello yet so it seemed odd to start with an atypical white one. Yet this site IS supposed to be about surprising wines so I popped it open.

When I took a sniff of Terrazze Dell' Etna's Ciura  I thought "grass" but this isn't the grass clipping taste of a NZ sauvignon blanc. It something dried, almost like hay. Think hay on a fall afternoon. But this is buried when you taste since the crispness and minerality of this wine slaps you across the face.

There isnt a great deal of fruit when you first sip this but as it warms and gets some air fruit comes out. This isn't citrus fruit, which is what my brain was telling me to expect, but more white orchard fruits like pears and a bit of something ripe and tropical. There is a hint of something floral and a mineral bite at the finish too.

Nerello mascalese is a Sicilian grape that is usually a red wine. As noted on a few other occasions, ANY grape can make a white wine. What generally imparts color into a wine is contact with the skin of the grape. Press the juice and get it away from the skin? Your wine will be white (there are some rare exceptions to this). This wine is 90 percent nerello mascalese and 10 percent carricante. Carricante is a white Sicilian grape with high acidity. It has apparently been associated with Mount Etna for centuries.

This is a wine with some body and complexity but it is also at home on a warm, summer afternoon.