Nine Hats Wines 2015 Riesling, Columbia Valley, $14
Best Buy! Fun-loving, hard-driving Gilles Nicault enjoys a level of freedom with these Nine Hats wines – the sister label that emerged beyond the acclaimed work of the nine winemakers involved in Walla Walla’s Long Shadows Vintners program. Inviting tropical aromas of Juicy Fruit Gum and orange cream include a faint whiff of petrol. Early-arriving acidity presents those tropical flavors in a dry refrain with a lick of slate. It’s only in the finish of Ambrosia Salad where the residual sugar of 1.3% trickles out a bit. This is not Poet’s Leap, the Riesling template German icon Armin Diel created as his part of Long Shadows, however Nicault is skewing differently for Nine Hats. And the 2016 vintage that’s around the corner will be even easier to find.
Rating: Outstanding!
Production: 1,294 cases
Alcohol: 13.4%
Charles Hesson says
The best US Riesling is from the Willamette Valley Oregon!