We clearly need winery input here. I don’t care what the pH is, 3.6% RS is well into “off dry” territory. And, there is a huge difference between 10.2 and 12.4% alcohol.
morning, typing before coffee so beware. not a typo, the RS figure came from the winery a few days ago - the 2010 is a brand new release - who knows, maybe they jotted down the wrong #, the winery should be on the boards any minute now.
I tasted this bottle personally, no way does it fall in the sugary sweet category, it was quite refreshing! Just might be the best Cali 2010 Riesling I’ve tasted thus far - we do open mounds of Riesling in our home each week…
We actually make two different Rieslings the one on the WOOT is our Regular Riesling which we call Off-Dry and that is the apparent source of some confusion.
It is an excellent example of an Alsatian style wine. One of our previous bottlings of this wine was our first Esterlina wine featured at The White House in 2005. So this bottling is still very special to our family…
[labrat]
Lab rat writing in- I concur that it is definitely not a syrupy sweet wine- I do not like sweet wines at all. This was actually not as dry as I expected, but I also did not find it sweet. I didn’t comment on the dry, off-dry issue because I frankly don’t drink that many Rieslings and did not feel qualified to do so, but I would not have liked the wine if it was very sweet. Bright, light and smooth would be more accurate. Like Texicaliali, my hubby’s take was “refreshing” and I don’t disagree with that.
take a few minutes to read this article written by Jon Bonne of the San Francisco Chronicle a few years back about Cole Ranch, makes me want to shut off the computer and jump in the car heading north today. Sigh (WD keeps me waaaay to busy on Fridays!)
Product Bottling Date pH TA (g/L) % Alc %RS Harvest Date
2010 Esterlina Riesling Cole Ranch (OFF Dry)
8/2/2011 3.00 6.61 10.0 3.69 11/2/2010
this is hard to format all the info for the blog but left to right column headings match up with the info in the line below interms of the correct number for the 2010 Riesling on Woot today… thanks for the interest and conversation, fyi… Riesling is the #1 recommended white wine by sommeliers internationally according to the Sommelier Journal
Unlike wineyum, you did not list any of the typical Riesling floral aromas/flavors - the sort of flavors that I find sets apart a Riesling from other varietals.
Do you think you did not taste/smell any, or do you drink enough Rieslings that you just assume they are there and not report on them?
Thank you for your input. Riesling is much more popular abroad than it is in the United States - the primary reason being that historically, so much of the Riesling produced in California lacked sufficient acid to balance the natural sugars when fermented off dry and often even when fermented dry. The result was a whole lot of very mediocre (to be charitable) sweetish Riesling (often blended with lesser grapes) that wasn’t even as good as the mediocre Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay that ultimately replaced it.
There was always a little good Riesling, but not much - mostly in Napa, some in the Mayacamas mountains (Stony Hill), some here and there in the Russian River Valley back in the day.
Few remember that Riesling was considered California’s finest white wine before Prohibition, when there was almost no Chardonnay in the state at all.
We are fortunate that people have discovered Mendocino County’s climate is very well suited to growing Riesling, and some fine ones now come out of there, especially the Anderson Valley.
There is nothing quite like a first class dry Riesling with California’s legendary Dungeness crab!
Good point. I did get the floral, but did not identify them further, so failed to make any note of them. I did not pick up on the honey that both wineyum and bhodilee commented on. Just not a note that stuck out for me.
I should have looked to see what is typical in a Reisling for comparison – there or not.
I know I will never be a professional taster, I only have the first half of rpm’s advice down. I’ll keep at it, but not good at taste memory, which makes it hard to describe what I taste.
As Jon Bonne of the SF Chronicle points out it is the US Monopole, (that is the question on the Sommelier exam). There is a famous monopole in France and Cole Ranch is the US counterpart…a very unique micro-climate
I tasted Stony Hill recently with high-hopes and was left very disappointed. Very “flat” in taste. I tend to stick with the Mendocino Rieslings when not sipping Alsatian or German bottles…
Ohh yeah, Dungeness Crab season is around the corner!
I’m thinking of Stony Hill as it was 30 years ago and more - Fred McCrea was one of the very great figures of the revitalization of California white wine. His Riesling is less famous than his Chardonnay, but it was a very fine wine as well. I’ve had bottles last 20 years and still be worth drinking.
I think he’s saying he didn’t expect much out of me Or for me to go off on some tangent that had nothing to do with anything. This wine was way to good to be cynical though. I will think long and hard about destroying my DIWBM on this. Perhaps the wife would relent as she really liked it and that has NEVER happened.
Or for me to go off on some tangent that had nothing to do with anything. This wine was way to good to be cynical though. I will think long and hard about destroying my DIWBM on this. Perhaps the wife would relent as she really liked it and that has NEVER happened.