Wine tasting at Windham Wines

Another nice interlude in store for us. Tonight it’s Austrian whites and rosés. It’s been rainy but the sun came out in the nick of time.

It was the smallest crowd we’ve seen there, but we had a nice time. The show was put on by Winthrop of Artisanal Cellars, and he did a nice job telling us about Austria and the Austrian wine industry. Lots of small producers, and apparently their wines have more in common with Northern Italy than with Germany.

We tasted seven altogether:

• 2011 Mittelbach Rose – perfectly good, but unremarkable
• 2009 Strauss Welschresling – racy, crisp acidity. Only a few bottles in VT. Lee liked this one best, so we bought a couple.
• 2011 Hillinger First Hill White – a blend, springy, peas, asparagus.
• 2011 Anton Bauer Gruner Veltliner – the “summer sipper” and a fine value
• 2011 Tegernseerhof Gruner Veltliner T26 – lots of story with the terraced vineyards and the special soil, but in the end it just tasted like wine to us
• 2011 Tegernseerhof Riesling Terrassen – nice perfumey nose, but didn’t translate to the flavor so much
• 2009 Meinklang Pinot Gris Graupert – long story about unpruned vines, made for a wonderful grapey perfume. John liked this a lot, although it was a bit pricier than the others.

Somehow we managed to get the case discount… go figure.