Wyncroft Tasting

Jim Lester stopped in at a friends house in Michigan last Sunday to drop off some wine we had ordered. He brought a few wines for us to try so we visited for a while and sampled a few wines. Here are my notes:

• 2009 Wyncroft Riesling Avonlea Vineyard 89 Points

  USA, Michigan, Lake Michigan Shore

  Jim opened another bottle of this when he dropped off our wine order. Almost identical notes as before. Very pretty tropical nose. Dry style with crisp apple notes. A little less oily and fat than last time. 89-90 points.

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• 2008 Wyncroft Riesling December Harvest Wren Song Vineyard 91 Points

  USA, Michigan, Lake Michigan Shore

  Jim opened another bottle of this when he dropped off our wine order. Jim says that this wine was actually a mistake (perhaps accident is a better term). The owner of the Wren Song vineyard could not find a buyer for his Riesling grapes in 2008 because of the economy. Therefore, he was going to let the grapes go to the birds instead of spending money to pick them. When zero degree weather arrived in December and stayed for a week, he decided to pick the grapes for icewine and got about twice as many grapes as expected. Jim agreed to let him use his winery equipment and when he saw the must and tested it, thought he could make something interesting with it and bought some of the frozen grapes. This wine was just as good as when I tasted it in March with near identical notes. An auslese twin. 90-91 points

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• 2006 Wyncroft Chardonnay Avonlea Vineyard 84 Points

  USA, Michigan, Lake Michigan Shore

  Jim opened another bottle of this when he dropped off our wine order. I did not like this as much as when I last had it in March. It was first served at room temperature and almost knocked me out of my seat. Like getting hit with a 2x4. There was a lot of wood in this wine. Aged for 30 months on oak barrels rather than the 24 months which is normal at Wyncroft. 13% alcohol. Notes of vanilla cream and heavily spiced. I am not a chardonnay fan to begin with but this over the top wine is the reason. We tried it again in a half hour after it chilled down and it was more drinkable. The lemon notes from March were back. I know that these type of showy Chardonnays have to be made to get attention and showcase what a new region can do; but, I much prefer an unoaked style. 76 points when warm. 84 points when chilled. Undoubtedly, new world chard fans will like this better than I did.

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• 2008 Wyncroft Shou Avonlea Vineyard 89 Points

  USA, Michigan, Lake Michigan Shore

  Jim opened another bottle of this when he dropped off our wine order. This wine was just bottled 2 weeks ago. The bottle Jim brought was capped off with a little bit of 2009 Shou but not enough to make a significant difference in the wine. I had a barrel sample of this in March and the wine seems to have improved and rounded out a bit since then. This was decanted for 2 hours before we drank it. 12.3% alcohol. It was still a very young tasting wine though. Aged in neutral wood. 2008 was a cool year with high malic acids. This had a dry mouthfeel. Notes of young berries, cloves and cherry. Showed lighter tannins and bright acidity. 89 points.

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