This is a strange wine. Not bad, just straining at the edges of non-conformity and difficult to *place*. I’m assuming it is a skin-contact wine, as the deep honey color is nothing like you have seen from dry versions of the variety–only seriously aged stickies. I actually poured and tasted it and developed some thoughts BEFORE turning the bottle around–as is my typical MO–and was quite astonished to see it listed as Gewurztraminer. One of my favorite grapes, but this is like no other in the realm. It doesn’t smell like gewurtz–it certainly doesn’t LOOK it–and, as you can probably assume by now: doesn’t check too many classic boxes on the palate either. But let’s be open-minded.
Vague fruitiness in the nose, it almost smells like mead. It doesn’t smell bad, there just isn’t anything of note. Everything is in tiny increments, and I wonder if it is merely my imagination desperately trying to fill in the blanks and apply words to describe it. I *suppose* there’s an eensy-weensy tropical in there? Maybe a touch of vegetal residing deep inside? There’s nothing here.
Tasting it meets nearly the same fate. A dull, lifeless wine: watery nothingness on top and watery acid below. This wine is boring–something wines from this producer rarely are. There’s just literally nothing here. I’m out of words. It’s like someone took a 10YO Chenin Blanc and added 50% water. There’s a little steely flaccidness on the finish, perhaps tinged in faint green-briar and a touch of tannin. For the life of me I can’t figure out WHAT I would do with this wine or HOW I could convince anyone to like it. I’m having visions of all the cool kids sitting around in a darkened room in their Pendletons and beards and Blundys basking in the glow of this wine and philosophisizing on its process to fruition and magical nuances and you know what? I’m OK with that. They can embrace the suck.
2014 FORLORN HOPE ‘The Faufreluches’ Gewurztraminer Hill Vyd RRV Sonoma 12.88
Stephen McConnell 