WTN: Honeymoon Trails Vignoles

This is from one of the newer wineries here in Niagara County, NY. I won this bottle as a door prize at my 40-year high school reunion in August, and was going to open it last month, so I put it in the fridge and forgot about it. I opened it the other night with my son. Vignoles is perhaps my favorite hybrid. I've made it a few times over the years, have had it from several FL wineries and have young vines growing in my yard. No vintage listed on the blue, silk-screened bottle. Synthetic cork. When I poured it into glasses, my first impression was "Whoa! This could be a good thing or a bad thing." Deep golden-amber color, but brilliant, with no sediment. With good acidity, and a bit of RS to balance, the wine bore the characteristics of a well-aged, botrycized Riesling. Not at all what I was expecting, especially from a local winery less than 3 years old, or from Vignoles. I recall an old Andrea Immers TV show where she served a botrycized Vignoles dessert wine from Connecticut to the person who taught her sommelier skills. I looked in the fridge for some blue cheese, but couldn't find any, so I shaved off thin slices of salty Romano, which went very well with this wine. It was a good thing. I may have to visit this winery again (the one time I did go there, I was not all that impressed) to see if this was somehow a fluke bottle or if they have more of this. This was a very surprising wine.

Howie,
My friend Gary Hoover owns this winery. Maybe we could hit the place up together? Gary is the former winemaker/part owner of Niagara Landing- he made the Boxer Blush that won the Best Blush at the Governor's cup.
Ed

Howie, I just googled this winery and see they have a close out of their vignoles ongoing. Seven dollars per bottle won't break the bank.

Ed - sounds like a plan.
Bob - thanks for the heads-up. I'm actually going to be near there Saturday evening.

I have some fondness for Vignoles, too. I've had some nice ones, both dry (notably the 2001 Anthony Roads Dry Vignoles) and demisec (2004 Keuka Springs). Nice in blends, too (e.g., Ravines house white typically has Vignoles).

Count me in as a new fan of Vignoles. A few years ago I began buying it to blend with Cayuga, but now bottle it by itself. The big mouth feel in combination with usually high acidity makes it distinctive. I ferment it dry and then play around with small amounts of sugar to vary the RS. Each sweetness level is nice. I don't think any one stands out although it does need some sugar. Bone dry doesn't do it for me.

I haven't had enough Vignoles to qualify as a fan quite yet. That said, I had a delightful/delish late harvest Vignoles from Creekbend Vineyard(Oliver Winery) here in Indiana this past summer. My impressions can be found here.
'Winger

Glad you liked it Howie. Right off the bat, though, I've got two nitpicks: the "non-vintage" label and the plastic cork (I'd use screwcaps if it were my winery). I wonder why on earth so many wineries continue to omit vintage years on their wines ... unless it's because they blend from different vintages. Still, a table wine without a year on the label tends to come across as suspect to me.

Glad you liked it Howie. Right off the bat, though, I've got two nitpicks: the "non-vintage" label and the plastic cork (I'd use screwcaps if it were my winery). I wonder why on earth so many wineries continue to omit vintage years on their wines ... unless it's because they blend from different vintages. Still, a table wine without a year on the label tends to come across as suspect to me.

Actually, Paul, I believe it would all be from one vintage, but their bottles are silk-screened and have no labels, so imagine they have to order a lot of the bottles to get a price break and they can then use the same bottles from one year to the next. Hey, small, new place trying to make ends meet.

Ahh - yes! Recycling bottles ... Actually getting them ready for my annual wine is my least favourite part of winemaking

I did manage, after bringing it up a few times, to get a local small winery near me to start putting vintage numbers on their labels. They use just regular bottles and labels as opposed to engraved/custom bottles, and since they make grape wines every year, I thought it was awful to have bottles on the shelf from mixed up years, with some years being better than others but I as the consumer not knowing which is which.

Unless it's something like this particular Vignoles, I think that vintage numbers should be de rigueur if a wine is entirely from a given year's harvest. Trouble is, many places probably are correct in assuming that lots of people walk in not even caring about that detail ... so why do the extra work of putting it on the label.