Monday, July 5, 2010

A Tale of Two Viogniers

After a tasty meal at Treo Restaurant in Sylvania, it was a great evening to visit with neighbors and tasting team members Pat and Stephanie round their backyard fire pit. While in Washington for the recent North American Wine Bloggers Conference, I tasted some delightful Viogniers and so we thought this would be a nice night to go head to head with two versions of the tasty white wine.

The first bottle was a 2006 Bridalwood Estate Winery Reserve Viognier. I purchased this a couple years ago for a planned tasting and for one reason or other, it was never opened. I wanted to sample this bottle before it aged out. The color was a mellow gold and the taste had a slight earthiness. This was a medium bodied wine.

We contrasted this with a 2007 Viognier from Goose Watch Winery in the Finger Lakes. The contrast was strong. The Goose Watch was lighter in body (and color too). The wine had floral flavor notes and a freshness to it.

This Viognier seemed to be the sure winner. After a while I went back to the Bridalwood and found that it had a bit more complexity than the Goose Watch and I was liking the fuller body.

It was a nice pairing to consider while sampling various cheeses, listening to music and enjoying the crackling fire.

We capped the evening with a nice Ohio red, the 2008 Dolcetto from Firelands Winery. This wine was dry with nice raspberry and a refreshing, bright finish. We experimented with various chocolates with the conclusion that it pairs well with chocolate and we all really like chocolate.

As the fire burned out, so did our evening. We hopped over the backyard fence and headed home.

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