A red wine gets it’s color from being in contact with the skins after the grapes are crushed. (Except when the center of the grape is red). By removing the crushed grapes from the skins as quickly as possible. The limitation of this is that a fair amount of the flavor and the tannins come from the skins.
I recently have encountered a number of traditionally red wines that are white. This includes a white Pinot and this white cab.
I recently visited Ridgepoint winery. I had the pleasure of having lunch there. I love their country style Italian kitchen. Reasonably priced yummy foods. Stop by if your in the area!
Ridgepoint are doing some great work on their wines as well. I had the pleasure of chatting with the two owners the Scarsellones as well as the winemaker Arthur Harder during my visit.
On the white side their Riesling has surpassed Cave Springs as my favorite in Niagara. I bought some of this years and look forward to trying a bottle for a future review. On the red side Mauro explained they are working on softening their reds and removing some of the edgey tannic reds of past. Ridgepoint is also making some Nebbiolo a traditional Italian grape used in Barolo and Barbarescos.
Being a unique wine I had no idea what to expect from this one. The wine is pale in color. On the nose it is very reminiscent of a dry Riesling. On the mid pallet the taste matches the nose. It is somewhere between a Riesling and a Gewürztraminer. As the wine warmed up the length of the wine improved. All in all this was an interesting tasting! I would give it an 88 or so.
Copyright John Galea for CanadianWineGuy.com
