Must be Cave Spring month! Last night upon my arrival Mrs CWG had a bottle of this open, it is one of her favorite easy drinking, refreshing and casual whites. Cave Spring do several Rieslings from Ice Wine to some Estate versions. This is one of their least expensive and quite pleasing ones, and if memory serves me correctly this was previously names Off-Dry and only with this year’s release was the off-dry removed from the name. The Riesling grape originated from the Rhine river in Germany and is extremely well suited to parts of the Canada for growing due to the similar weather and soil conditions. In Niagara it has become a stable grape used in making Icewines, Late Harvests, some sparkling (think Champagnes), and both semi sweet and dry table wines. This wine is of the semi-sweet variety so before I go into tasting notes and opinions just be aware you are getting a sweeter then 0 wine. Okay on to the tasting!
I was not here for the opening of the wine, but we do not decant and the nose does not change much I can tell you that you are going to get a heavy dose of apricots and green apple. First sip you will find an abundance of fruit and the wine is a bit heavier then you’d expect. In fact the wine is back-loaded in structure, not displeasing just interesting, starts a bit softer and finishes a tad heavier, if that makes sense to everyone. This wine has a good acidity level that compliments the sweetness, I cannot offhand tell you if this is a 1 or a level 2 sweetness but I’d bank on 1 as it is not sickly sweet and quite easy to drink on it’s own. In fact you will find it a summer style wine, easy to drink on the porch/deck while doing nothing during a lazy summer day. Once you get into the wine you will notice many different aromas: the abundant apricot, peach, strawberries and a hint of grapefruit. Overall this wine delivers exactly what you would hope for out of an off-dry Riesling. Enjoyable, refreshing and very well priced!
The subjective rating for this is 86 out 100.
