3843 Union Rd, Cheektowaga, NY 14225
Phone: 716.681.8150
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Alcohol Cheektowaga Drinks Wine
"With 4.2% alcohol content and an amber tone, the Blueberry Wheat Beer isn't a girly drink, but thanks to the name and flavor, it may well appeal to women more than the typical beer."
We enjoy wines, but we don't claim to be experts in them; instead, we focus on finding the best-tasting options in categories we think we might enjoy. You've already seen our brief series on Sake and Sparkling Sakes; today, we're focusing on a couple of blueberry wines produced in Western New York, one produced in New Jersey, and a couple of less potent but even more impressive alternatives: blueberry beer and blueberry tea. This time, we've also included links to local stores where we purchased the featured items.
This week, we did most of our shopping at The Wine Sellar in Cheektowaga, grabbing two bottles of locally produced blueberry wine and one bottle from outside for between $10 and $14 per bottle. We also picked up a bottle of Ellicottville Brewing Company's blueberry beer from a nearby Wegmans, and some loose-leaf blueberry tea from Teavana, a national chain with a store at the Walden Galleria mall. Surprisingly, the three wines had little in common with one another; we're throwing in the other two options for those who might prefer them.
Our favorite wine of the bunch was Tomasello Winery's Blueberry Wine ($10), sold in a tall, almost ice wine-like cobalt bottle that disguises its 500ml serving size. One of the surprises about natural blueberry drinks we've tried over the years is that their concentrated flavor is typically far less sweet and easily identifiable as blueberry than you'd expect, becoming strong and sour, almost like pomegranate juice. True to that observation, the Tomasello was tangy, almost sour, and not too sweet; the blueberry flavor was subtle, and the wine more bitter than blueberry flavored. Yet while it was not the sweetest drink of the three, it possessed a slightly richer flavor than the others, and its 11% alcohol content helped it to strike a nice compromise between a traditional red table wine and a more blatant dessert wine. Though we'd rate it at 2.5 stars overall, we'd probably try it again; notably, it's produced outside of New York State, in Hammonton, New Jersey.
Our least favorite was the Montezuma Winery Blue Moon Blueberry Wine ($11), sold in a larger 750ml bottle. Unlike the others, this wine - described by its makers as possessing "intense blueberry character" - came in a clear bottle that was smeared inside with what looked to be dried blueberry sediment. The flavor was harsh, a dry wine with a much darker color than the others, and the blueberries seemed to sit in the background rather than the fore. It's obvious from taste one that it has a real bite of alcohol - the 11.6% content was more noticeable here than in the Tomasello - but after every sip, the bitter flavor and a nasty aftertaste had us repeating that we didn't want to finish the glass. It wasn't worth having again, from our perspective, and we'd give it one star, but fans of really dry reds might find something to like here. It's made in Seneca Falls, New York.
In the middle of the group was the Earle Estates Meadery Blueberry Bounty ($14), the most expensive of the bunch, served in a 750ml cobalt bottle. Interestingly, Earle Estates specializes in meads - honey wines - and thus this particular blueberry beverage was actually made from 45% Blueberry Wine and 55% Honey Mead. While the vineyard describes Blueberry Bounty as "semi-sweet," that's a matter of perspective, and probably true only by contrast with pure honey wines. We found it to be the sweetest of the three, with a light taste of honey and an almost artificial infusion of blueberry; until the aftertaste, the 9% alcohol content was only modestly noticeable relative to its flavor neighbors. It was the lightest in depth of the three - definitely not as good as the Tomasello version - but Bounty's simple, sweet dessert wine-like character made it a lot easier to enjoy than the Montezuma. We'd give it 2 stars; one of us would buy it again, the other would not. It's produced in Penn Yan, New York.
We've been fans of EBC's Blueberry Wheat Beer for some time - enough, in fact, to buy a $34 2.5-liter German growler full on our most recent visit to the brewer's Ellicottville restaurant location, and then six-packs of the bottles for $8. With 4.2% alcohol content and an amber tone, the Blueberry Wheat Beer isn't a girly drink, but thanks to the name and flavor, it may well appeal to women more than the typical beer. EBC injects only a hint of blueberry flavor and little if any sweetness, into a light, Corona-style wheat beer; the crisp, pleasant wheat flavor lets you know you're drinking beer, but with an uplifting background blueberry flavor that tastefully evokes the better parts of a good cider. There's nothing artificial or forced about the blueberry flavor here, but it's noticeable, and great. We'd give it 3 or 3.5 stars out of four.
Updated: For those seeking stronger blueberry flavor and alcohol in their beer, Blue Dawg Brewing's Wild Blue offers both in a fun, more cider- or lambic-like bottle. Brewed in Baldwinsville, NY by a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch, it's a lager with added fruit juice, possessing a reddish color, greater sweetness, and enough blueberry punch to satisfy those who prefer punch over subtlety. If the EBC version rates 3.5 stars, we'd give this 3, but some people might well reverse those rankings. Expect to pay around $9 for six bottles.
The final drink in our group is Teavana's Blueberry Bliss Rooibos Tea, sold bagged for around $3.10 per ounce. As the name suggests, what you wind up with is a collection of dry, citrusy green Rooibos leaves and tiny shriveled blueberries, eligible to be steeped in a mesh tea infuser like this one
We plan more articles in this series on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Stay tuned for what's next.
