Friday, April 12, 2013

Riverview Cellars 2008 Bianco, Niagara River VQA


This tasty Ontario white was received during our TasteCamp North trip a couple years ago. The wineries of the Niagara Peninsula and Niagara-on-the-Lake area are spectacular and gushing with quality wines.
Riverview Cellars is a family winery just a stone’s throw from the Niagara River and on the scenic route between Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. So this wine is from the Niagara River VQA (VQA being the Canadian label for appellations).
I fooled the Green Dragon with this one. Although an early fan of Gewürztraminer, she lately has claimed some nonsense about it being “too floral” for her taste.
The Riverview Bianco is a thirst-quenching blend of Riesling and Gewürztraminer in just the right proportions. This is a self-proclaimed semi-dry wine, but the sweetness of the Riesling is brought under rein by the Gerwurz.  Likewise the floral tendencies of the Gerwurz, to my way of thinking, was likewise curtailed by the Riesling.
Did it work on the Dragon? Her response was, “What is this? It tastes a little bit floral.” Hmmm… I was unable to slip it past her. However, we both agreed that this is a tasty wine. I had suspected that this might be a sweeter wine. After all the semi-dry label gives a winemaker license to explore a large range on the sweetness scale.
I was pleasantly surprised to find this just a notch or two above “off dry” and with a good balance between sweetness and acidity. There are indeed floral aromas (which is good in my book!), some nice apple and pear flavor notes with a slight spice from our friend Gerwurz.
As the weather heats up, this is a nice bottle to enjoy while relaxing on the patio (or maybe overlooking a scenic river). The cost is $13.95 Canadian – a great bargain indeed.
Rating: 2.5 of 5  Value: 3.5

 



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