Pellegrini: All-Around Good Place September 26, 2015

http://www.pellegrinivineyards.com/

The entrance to the tasting room and courtyard

The entrance to the tasting room and courtyard

It was a beautiful fall weekend, which meant the agritainment business was in full swing, which meant we were stuck in traffic on Sound Avenue for a frustrating hour, which meant we decided to turn our pick-up of our Pellegrini wine club shipment into our tasting for the weekend.   Anyway, it’s been a year since I wrote about Pellegrini, one of our favorite wineries.

Wedding guests starting to gather outside

Wedding guests starting to gather outside

When we went to pull into the parking lot, we were somewhat dismayed to see a huge party bus pull in just ahead of us, but when the first passenger to get out was in a long white lace dress we realized it was a wedding party.  The large central courtyard was still in the process of being set up for the reception, while guests milled around in the tasting room and out on the lawn.  As a result, we decided to quickly share one tasting of the whites, since we get—and know we like—the reds in our subscription.  If you’re not in the wine club, a tasting consists of three two-ounce pours of your choice and one “complimentary” one-ounce pour of the oaked chardonnay for $12.  The glasses are arrayed on a labeled place mat on a tray, which helps you choose the order in which to drink them (roughly top to bottom, left to right).   Oh, and either our server was flustered by the influx of wedding guests or she forgot or they are no longer on offer, but we did not get the usual little bag of oyster crackers that comes with a tasting.

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  1. 2014 Gewürztraminer                   $24.99

I used to think I didn’t like gewürztraminers because they were too sweet, but several of the North Fork gewürztraminers are not.  However, this one is a touch too sweet for my taste.  It has a very strong honeysuckle aroma with tastes of sweet plums—perhaps greengage?—and mineral.  My husband and I turned to each other simultaneously and said, “It would be a good choice with spicy Thai food.”  Steel fermented.

Our tray of tastes

Our tray of tastes

  1. 2014 Medley White    $21.99

The Medley White is also steel fermented, and includes 5% gewürztraminer, plus 55% sauvignon blanc and 40% chardonnay.  We like this one much better.  It has some nice complexity of both aroma and taste, and we agree that we smell something like cigar or pipe tobacco plus rock or mineral.  Though it is not very dry, it is also not too sweet, with a good balance.  We taste pear and an almost salty minerality which my causes my tasting buddy to wax poetic.  “Like salt spray on a windy day at the beach,” he opines.  Okay.

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  1. 2014 Chardonnay $19.99

This is our complimentary taste, an oaked chardonnay that spends eight months in French oak, and is 80% oaked and 20% steel fermented.  You can smell the usual woods/vanilla aroma of an oaked chard, and the taste is similarly undistinguished.

One of the outdoor tables

One of the outdoor tables

  1. 2014 Sauvignon Blanc $24.99

“It smells like a florist,” I say.  “You mean a florist shop, not the florist herself!” corrects my husband.  Well, yes.  This, like the Medley, is a well-balanced wine, with a good mix of tart and sweet, nice and crisp and lemony.  I’d have it with oysters any time.

We amused ourselves watching the caterers setting up.

We amused ourselves watching the caterers setting up.

Reasons to Visit:  a good all-around winery, with room to sit inside or outside, space for children to run around outside, good whites and reds; you can bring your own snacks; the Medley White, the Sauvignon Blanc; we didn’t try it today, but the Petit Verdot is generally excellent.

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One view of the tasting room

One view of the tasting room

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