4434 Van Dusen Rd., Cambria NY 14094
Web: Niagara Landing Wine Cellars
Phone: 716.433.8405
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"As ports go, Niagara Landing's 2005 Port is a little sweeter than the most sophisticated versions we've tried - a common characteristic of Niagara Landing's dessert wines."
Though most of our weekly Bubbly columns have focused on individual flavors of fruit wine, this week's is a little different: we continue our look at Western New York's wineries and nearby competitors by expanding on a category that we'd discussed in our look at the 2008 Taste of Buffalo - red grape dessert wines - then adding three new Niagara Wine Trail fruit wines to the pile we've previously reviewed. If you enjoy sweet wines, this edition's pinot noir, port, blueberry, cherry, and raspberry wines will surely wet your whistle.
First up is Warm Lake Estates' Glace Noir (375ml/$20), a dessert pinot noir that we were prepared to tell you was amongst our very favorites from the area, and certainly the best we'd tried at the 2008 Taste: it was. We visited Warm Lake in Lockport, NY last month, went through a fun tasting with a number of their wonderful pinot noirs - their specialty - and left happily with two bottles of the Glace Noir for ourselves. As was the case last year, we were taken with the rich, oak-hinted, and slightly syrupy wine, which only fell a little short of the typical ice wine in thickness, but eclipsed it in depth of flavor; like port, and strong red wines, it had a body closer to whiskey than a light white.
Unfortunately, the bottles we brought back with us weren't quite up to that standard. What we were told at Warm Lake was that a bottlers' error had messed up its stock of smaller, 3-ounce Glace Noirs, resulting in twice as much alcohol content as the typically 17% wine; we tried a little, and while it wasn't undrinkable, it was obviously imbalanced and absolutely not worth buying. The larger, untainted bottle we tasted from that day was as we remembered from the Taste of Buffalo, and supposedly representative of the untainted 375ml standard Glace. Having subsequently gone through two of those larger bottles at home, however, we can say that they weren't quite the same: though the dessert-friendly sweetness was the same, these bottles were more watery - thinner and lighter than the ones we'd tasted before, with only three-quarters of the muskier original to recommend it; the alcohol content is a little more prominent in the flavor due to the diminished surrounding body. We'd rate the Glace as originally tasted at 3.5 stars, the 2004 bottled versions we purchased at 2.5 stars; hopefully, Warm Lake will sort out whatever issues it's having for the year ahead.
Thankfully, nearby Cambria, NY's Niagara Landing Wine Cellars has a wonderful alternative. Its 2005 Port ($24/750ml) is a red wine blend with comparably thick viscosity and sweetness to the original Glace Noir, its grape content offering similar richness and depth, and its 19% alcohol leaving Whiskey's familiar belly-warming effects as it moves through your body. As ports go, this one is a little sweeter than the most sophisticated versions we've tried - a common characteristic of Niagara Landing's dessert wines - but it's wonderful either when consumed alone or with chocolates; they take a slight edge off the natural sweetness, leaving a deep red grape flavor behind to be appreciated. By contrast, the Glace bottles we brought home didn't do as well with chocolate; they just tasted thinner. We'd rate the 2005 Port at 3.5 stars; it would certainly be worth having again.
Our other three wines today are individual fruit wines that supplement our prior reviews of blueberry, raspberry, and cherry wines. First up is Blue Beryl, sold in attractively labelled 750ml ($19) and 375ml ($10) bottles by The Winery at Marjim Manor in Appleton, NY, as the sweeter of its two blueberry wines. With 12% alcohol, we found Blue Beryl to be roughly Maneschewitz-caliber, sweet and obviously alcohol-laden - the alcohol is actually more prominent here than in the Glace, above - but light, and not particularly strong on actual blueberry flavor. It merits 2 stars; it's not bad, but not great, either.
Second is Honeymoon Trail Winery's Frozen Cherry ($11/750ml), a cherry table wine produced in Cambria, New York. Described by its maker as a "sweet, sweet, sweet red fruit wine," with no specifics on its actual alcohol content, the Frozen Cherry has the characteristically pleasant sweetness of the other Honeymoon Trail dessert wines we've tasted, with the consistency of a typical blush grape wine - not too thin, not too thick - and just enough actual cherry flavor and scent to distinguish itself from other fruit wines. Sugar makes the first impression on the tongue, giving way to a light cherry flavor and a hint of alcohol at the end; there's no bitter finish. This is a nice but not amazing dessert wine; it merits 2.5 stars and is certainly worthy of a tasting if you're in the area - you may really like it.
Last up is Hernder Estate's Iced Raspberry ($15 CDN/200ml), a product of a St. Catherines, Canada-based winery that's distributed through duty free shops on the U.S./Canada border, and given a flashy, tapered bottle that matches its premium pricing: the top is covered in a gold wax seal, pierced by a corkscrew. Inside is a thick, sweet wine that is unquestionably raspberry in first and last impact: it's the thickest of all the dessert wines we've tried, with a nearly syrupy consistency, and has the immediate scent, flavor, and sourness of fresh raspberries. It's what you'd imagine straight raspberry juice might taste like if it was mixed with a bit of alcohol - only 8%, actually - that manifests in the middle of each sip, with a short bitter finish. Relative to the others we mentioned above, it most matches the actual fruit it's based upon, but the relatively weak alcohol content and high price for the small quantity take it down a couple of notches from the wine that it most immediately brings to mind: Tomasello Winery's excellent cranberry. It's worthy of 2.5 stars.
The individual blueberry, cherry, and raspberry reviews above will be added to the original separate reviews for their genres of wine.
