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Home > Blogs > Uncorked > Archives > 2010 > June > 05 > Entry
Dayton Wine Fest offers up some pleasant surprises
The Dayton Wine Fest, which continues this afternoon and tonight from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, offered up a few surprises Friday night. (Click here for a photo gallery of last night’s festivities.)
No, not the brief downpour that soaked the museum’s grounds shortly after 5:30 p.m. — that just allowed attendees to get “up close and personal” with winemakers and winery representatives while huddling together under the winery tents. In Ohio in June, crazy weather is to be expected, and the sun came out to rescue the festival’s first night.
What I didn’t expect was to find so many good fruit-based wines, and to find Ohio wineries making white wines in a drier, more appealing style.
Jim Brandeberry of Brandeberry Winery in Enon never expected his Blackberry wine ($16.95), made from fruit brought in from New York State, to become his top-selling wine. but it has, and Brandeberry is working overtime to make sure he has enough of it. The wine is delicious — less sweet than you’d expect, but with plenty of fruit. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect that Australian winemakers are using Jim’s blackberry wine as their “secret ingredient” in some of their fruit-driven shiraz bottlings. What do you think? 5 percent? 10?
Wyandotte Winery near Columbus produces an excellent Apple Hill ($14) wine from five apple varieties grown in an orchard near Mansfield. This isn’t cloying apple juice: the wine is pleasantly tart, with refreshing acidity that begs the next sip. And Firelands Winery in Sandusky blends raspberry juice with riesling to produce a refreshing La Vele Raspberry Riesling (listed on the Firelands web site for $9 introductory price) that tastes drier than its aromas suggest.
Ohio continues to refine its white wines, with impressive results. I like that Brandeberry offers his Vidal Blanc — labeled “American” because he uses his own grapes plus New York State Vidal — in two styles: Dry and Semi-Dry, both for $15.95. Even the semi-dry is drier than you’d expect.
Other white wines that impressed included the Valley Vineyards (which by the way is celebrating its 40th anniversary Sunday with several special events) White Reflections ($10), a blend of Vidal, Seyval, Cayuga and some grape called Chardonnay that retains just a hint of sweetness; and two fine Gewurtztraminers: Ferrante 2008 Grand River Valley ($14.99 posted off to $12.99) and Firelands ($12). And the Meranda-Nixon Winery is making a very good wine from Catawba grapes, in an off-dry style that tames the grape’s walk-on-the-wild-side instincts. The 2009 Catawba ($9, I believe) was just released on Memorial Day weekend.
I wasn’t bowled over by many reds, although to be fair, the heat of the day didn’t do red wines any favors, and many of Ohio’s finest red wines are simply not made in sufficient quantity to pour in a festival setting like this. Plus, I didn’t sample every wine or even make it to every winery booth, sadly. But more wineries are experimenting with different red varieties, including Meranda-Nixon, which has planted Norton grapes that produce some very fine red wines in Missouri.
One newcomer this year was Eldchrist Winery in Plain City in central Ohio, which is bottling all non-estate wines for the moment, but which has some interesting grapes planted in new vineyards, including the Austrian grape Gruner-Veltliner.
Interesting things are happening in Ohio’s vineyards and in its wineries, and the results are showing up in the glass.
Here’s information you need to attend today’s event:
What: Dayton Wine Fest, a wine-and-food event highlighting 14 Ohio wineries
Where: Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, 2600 DeWeese Parkway, Dayton
When: 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 5
Admission: Adult Sampler tickets $25 at the gate. Tickets for ages 2 to 15 are $3, ages 16 to 20 or designated drivers are $10. Children under 2 are free.
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Comments
By cheifwino
June 6, 2010 1:59 PM | Link to this
Nice event without a big crowd. I am still not sure which wine goes with funnel cakes but the cajun fish & chips would be a good match for a crisp vidal. The cool whites and the fruit wines were definitely the right pick for a hot humid evening. In addition to the one’s Mark mentioned, here are a few I liked: Ferrante Gewurztraminer - classic Alsace style with a beautiful floral & fruit flavors; Breitenbach Road House Red - more of a rich rose than a true red (intersting blend of Catawba and Baco Noir) crisp tart cherry flavors and smooth finish; Mon Ami Riesling - a classic German Kabinet-style plenty of peach & apple flavors with just the right sweetness to balance the crisp acidity; Eldchrist Chardonnay - nice wine with a good balance of fruit and oak. Probably the best big red was the Ferrante Cabernet Franc. Hopefully more people got to come out on Saturday. I look forward to next year’s event. I wish the OH distributors would carry more of the local Ohio wines to make them easier to find at retail or restaurants.