Monday, Sep. 15, 2008

Tongue-twisting varieties are cool

By Ken Robertson, Wine Press Northwest

In the past few years I've noticed several varieties of wines with names I'd never heard of - Siegerrebe, Kerner, Ortega and Ehrenfelser, to name a few - are being produced in our region's wineries. Why and where do they come from?

From the varieties you've listed, I have to guess that you've been wine touring in the Puget Sound-San Juan Islands area in Washington, the Victoria-Vancouver areas in British Columbia and/or the Okanagan-Okanogan valleys of B.C. and Washington.

The four types of wine grapes you've listed, plus several more, all are among the grape varieties that growers started experimenting with in the Northwest as long as 20 or 25 years ago in an effort to find grapes that would thrive and ripen in cool-climate areas where winters can be harsh or where the count of really warm summer days is measured in weeks, not months.

The predominant grapes that historically thrived in the wine grape-growing areas of northern Europe have long been Riesling and Gewurztraminer. But there are many long-established other varieties that have been grown for centuries in areas such as the Alsace, plus a number of new varieties produced by crossbreeding these and other varieties over the last 100 years or so.

Siegerrebe, Kerner, Ortega and Ehrenfelser all are crossbreeds.

Siegerrebe comes from crossing Madeleine Angevine and Gewurztraminer, and the best examples tend to produce highly aromatic, spicy wines with aromas of pears, peaches and apples and a load of crisp fruit flavors.

In Wine Press Northwest's 2007 Platinum Judging, the 2006 Siegerrebe from San Juan Vineyards immediately grabbed the four judges' attention - yours truly included - and was voted a unanimous Double Platinum.

Since only four wines of the 258 gold-medal-winning wines entered in the competition won unanimous acclaim from the judges, it clearly was impressive. In addition, it was made nicely dry and would pair well with scallops, crab cakes or prawns.

I've since drunk a bottle of 2004 Siegerrebe from Blue Grouse Estate Winery in the Cowichan Valley of Vancouver Island that also was excellent. It was not so dry as the San Juan version and seemed to show aromas a little more like Muscat.

Anyway, my limited exposure to this grape, which is grown in only a handful of Northwest vineyards, indicates it has plenty of promise.

Kerner is a cross between Riesling and Trollinger, an even more obscure German red wine grape. Again, my exposure is limited to wines made in British Columbia on Vancouver Island and at Gray Monk Estate Winery in the Okanagan Valley.

The Gray Monk 2006 Late Harvest Kerner won a Platinum award in the 2007 Wine Press Northwest competition and also was voted the best dessert wine at the 2008 Northwest Wine Summit, held at Mount Hood, Ore., last spring.

Both times, it absolutely beguiled the judges. I thought it was the second best white wine at the Mount Hood competition, where judges gave it two rather confusing honors - best dessert wine and then only a silver medal!

With just 1.6 percent residual sugar, it delivered flavors of green apples and a nicely complex nose with apples and peaches. The other Kerner I've tasted recently was from Vancouver Island. It was made drier, was a bit over the hill and likely started out with rather less charm than the Gray Monk.

Ortega is a cross between Muller-Thurgau and Siegerrebe. It's highly aromatic, as one would expect, since it has elements of Madeleine Angevine and Gewurztraminer from the Siegerrebe and from Muller-Thurgau's Riesling ancestry. Though some have contended Muller-Thurgau was a Riesling-Sylvaner cross, more recent research indicates it was created by a self-pollinating Riesling vine, according to The New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia.

Whatever its origins, it makes a spicy, fragrant wine that's a promising blend of the characters typical to grapes grown in Northern Europe. Once again, the examples I've tasted have been from British Columbia. None has yet matched up to the fine Siegerrebes and Kerners I've encountered.

Ehrenfelser is generally counted as one of the best of the German crossbreeds. This combination of Riesling and Sylvaner is not at all uncommon in British Columbia. When I've tasted it blind, it's very difficult to separate from its Riesling ancestors.

Tour the wineries of the Okanagan, and chances are you'll find an Ehrenfelser for sale. One of my favorites from a 2007 tour was Mt. Boucherie's 2004 Summit Reserve, which won a gold medal at the Northwest Wine Summit in 2006. The taster can expect to discover orange blossom and floral aromas and nice citrus and an array of juicy stone fruit elements in a well-made Ehrenfelser.

Wine word: must

After our flings with French in several past columns, I thought a little four-letter word that comes from Old English might be a welcome change. Must is the juice pressed from freshly harvested grapes or the partially fermented juice that's still evolving into wine and usually includes seeds, grape skins and pulp. Since it's harvest time in the Northwest, it seems like an especially apt word for our fall edition.

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