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I’ve had a few of the 2006 Signorello wines this week, and they are showing nicely: plenty of interesting aromas, good body and tannins.  But they are young, the body not yet roundly evolved, the tannins still adolescent.  I’d love to try these in a year.

However, the wines are unfiltered.  Does that mean they aren’t stable enough to hold that long?

The Plumpjack people’s new winery is called CADE. I tried
their 2007 Sauvingon Blanc recently. Not unexpectedly it’s screwcap,
which is great. The wine itself if somehow light but substantial:
fine notes of sweet grasses in the nose, with more weight than you’d
expect in the body.
Of course, I drank it chilled. We left the bottle out,
though, and when I came back a few hours later, the wine had warmed
and its charm had completely disappeared, alas.
Incidentally, CADE winery, now set to open in winter 2009 on
Howell Mountain in the Napa Valley is LEED certified. Why is CADE
always spelled all-caps? The word is a Shakespearean term for
barrel. Maybe you’re supposed to make the association between LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and CADE?

…but we had TWO wines made with Rkatsiteli last night at Jonathon Alsop’s Boston Wine School. I brought the Dr. Konstantin Frank — and of course Jonathon had to one-up me with the Westport Rivers. Both 2006, and somewhat similar in their strong aromas and mineral finishes. The Frank had a powerful almost dairy-fermented aroma, while the WR was less so. And the Frank had a bigger body — nice with Beth Riely’s secret ingredient Sicilian Caponata. The Westport finished with more sweetness, and overall we felt it was a somewhat fresher and more appealing version of wine made with this ancient Caucasus grape.