Tried these two last night:
1.
NoisyWaterWnry CheninBlanc ForbiddenDesertVnyd/Engle (Skin-contact; SaH: 21.2Brix; Hrvstd: 8/26/19; 10.5%; 90 cs; Frst Hrvst; http://www.NoisyWaterWinery.com) NoisyWaterWnry/Alta/NM 2019: Light gold color; light phenolic/ViniMacerati/skin-contact some pear/CB/fruity light earthy pleasant nose; bit soft/metallic light phenolic/VM/resiny light CB/pear/appley pleasant flavor w/ very light tannic bite; med.long soft/tangy/bit metallic light phenolic/VM finish; not strongly phenolic & an altogether pleasant expression, if lightweight, expression of CB. $30.00
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2.
NoisyWaterWnry Chard ForbiddenDesertVnyd/Engle (Skin-contact; SaH: 23.2Brix; Hrvstd: 8/21/19; 12.5%; 127 cs; FrstHrvst; 30+ yr old vines)2019: Med.light gold color; rather earthy/dusty/bit dishwater/funky light Chard/melony slight phenolic/VM bit interesting nose; some tart/tangy/metallic light phenolic/VM/resiny somewhat earthy/dusty/OV slight herbal rather interesting flavors; very long lightly tart/tangy/bit metallic light phenolic/VM slight melony/Chard lightweight bit earthy finish; a pleasant enough Chard w/ a light VM signature but just that. $30.00
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. NoisyWater is a wnry over in Ruidoso (Noisy Water) NM. Owned by a man names Jasper Riddle. Ruidoso is a town up in the mountains of Eastern NM that is very touristy, popular w/ the Texans. He started out as a designer of T-Shirts to sell to the tourists. Then segued into winemaking, focusing on NM grapes. The tourist trade in Ruidoso was not a big enough pond, so he expanded to tasting rooms in Albq & SantaFe.
When they opened their SF tasting room, I went in and tasted thru most of their wines. I was pretty underwhelmed. The inexpensive ones all had too much r.s. for my taste. The higher-end wines were up in the $60/btl price range and pretty overpriced for what they were. Plus there was a focus on wines with cutesy labels (TightyWhiteys/BigLegs/Jo Mamma's; red chile & chocolate) that were not very good. So I'd pretty much written them off.
When Gruet sold out to precept Brands & focused on making American sparklers using WashState grapes, they decided it was to much work to farm grapes in NM. So they sold off their large vnyd over in Engle/NM. Jasper purchased it & so is now into big-time farming of NM grapes. Most of those vines are 30+ yrs old. He now calls it the ForbiddenDesert Vnyd. He enters his wines in a lot of wine judgings around the country & so has a ton of medals to show for it. For what that's worth.
A yr or so ago, Jasper was named NM Entrepreneur of the Year by some organization that doles thos things out. For what that's worth.
I saw in an article a few weeks ago that he won gold medals in some judging for a skin-contact CheninBlanc & Chard. First wines of that type made here in NM. So I went by the tasting room and picked up these two btls advertised as "orange" wines. They are not that, though. From the colors, I would guess they had only 3-4 days of skin-contact. The phenolic/VM signature was not very strong.
I was not overwhelmed by these two whites, but they struck me as better/more interesting than the ones I tried back then in their tasting room. They've added a lot more interesting wines to their portfolio & I should go revisit their tasting room. They're not NM's best wines (that would be Vivac & Black Mesa), but worth checking out again. Maybe NoisyWater will be able to survive strictly on the tourist trade and need not up the quality of their wines.
Tom
Last edited by TomHill on Tue Dec 22, 2020 5:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.