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
