Varietal: White Wine (unknown)
Region: Virginia – USA
Cost: $20 (approx)
Light-bodied and refreshing with ripe apple and a hint of cinnamon. Â Perfect with fish and other seafood.
Recommendations: Nothing inspires fear quite like the words “trust me.” Â And yet that’s exactly what my wife asked me to do after the Carytown Food & Wine Fest earlier this month when she purchased a bottle of the Saude Creek Vineyards White Wine. Â Why did she ask me to trust her? Â Because apparently this wine isn’t made from grapes, but from apples.
My normal reaction would be one of disdain and derision, but I love my wife, and trust her to pick a wine that won’t remind me of Welch’s Grape Juice or Apple Juice. Â In this case, she was pretty clutch. Â If blindfolded and asked what varietal the 2009 Saude Creek White Wine was I’d have to go with Chardonnay, or at least mostly Chardonnay.
That being said, the wine is fairly…flat. Â By that I mean that no flavor is particularly prominent. Â It’s not bad, but there’s no citrus, or oak, or floral notes that really jump up and say “pay attention to me!” Â Now, would I drink a bottle of this again if it magically appeared in my refrigerator? Â Sure. Â It was a passable bottle of wine and I certainly wouldn’t have guessed apple as the source of the wine if I hadn’t been told, but the lack of any main flavor is a bit of a letdown and something I hope Saude Creek manages to fix in later vintages.
I didn’t think it was amazing either, I was mostly just intrigued by the fact that it definitely didn’t taste like apple. When they poured it I was expecting some sort of weird cider type thing. It’s good to experiment. Glad I was “pretty clutch” ;-P