WTN: La Belle Heirloom Apple Wine

N/V La Belle, Heirloom Apple Wine, Walpole NH ($12.49 500 ml). Alcohol level: 12.5%. My brother gave this to me a year or so ago, so I don’t really know how old it was. I was kind of afraid to open it because I feared it might be cloyingly horrible or something like that. NOT!

It gave some floral notes on the nose, accompanied with some apple flavors upfront. The palate revealed a nicely mature white only slightly off dry and reasonably complex. The finish was delightful.

Matched it with brats sautéed in EVOO with Dijon mustard, and salad with Drew’s Roasted Garlic dressing. It all went together surprisingly well.

...and salad with Drew’s Roasted Garlic dressing...

I'll have to try that one.

You know, Carl, apple and pear wines - especially when made dry - can be very pleasant and work very well at the table too. I find them to be much more balanced than many berry wines, which can have an excessive sweet/tart profile that I find tiring after a while.

Thanks for the note.

You know, Carl, apple and pear wines - especially when made dry - can be very pleasant and work very well at the table too. I find them to be much more balanced than many berry wines, which can have an excessive sweet/tart profile that I find tiring after a while.

Putney Mountain Winery of Putney, Vermont, produced (when I visited) a series of sparkling apple wines from different apple varieties all of which were vinified dry and which would've made decent wines with a meal--though to be honest none of them caught my fancy. But cloyingly sweet they were not--and the difference among apple varieties was indeed interesting.

Interestingly, Farnum Hill Ciders in Lebanon, NH, which is one of the better cider producers in the USA, grows its apples on the exact same "granite" (actually syenite) that they have an hour down the road in Walpole.