SOOOoooooo, tonight, we will be reporting on two CALIFORNIA wines, just to bring us back into some semblance of warm, two wines we tasted over the past couple of nights, both from Firestone Vineyard, in Santa Barbara, California.  I understand at -14 degrees these will be considerably frigid Gewurztraminer’s.  As I noted before Gewurztraminer is a grape varietal that I have avoided writing about, but only because of the name.  It is a tricky one to say AND to write. 

Firestone Vineyard is the source of our favorite Sauvignon Blanc.  We visited the winery a few years back when we visited the Santa Barbara Wine region in the Santa Ynez Valley.  It was a wonderful trip and the memories from that trip surface all the time.

We started out this tasting by opening up a 2005 Gewurztraminer.  It was somewhat effervescent and Shelley was surprised by how dry it was.  I thought it was very smooth and mellow with a hint of flowers on the nose and mandarin orange in the taste.  It had a tart finish. 

When we opened the 2007 Gewurztraminer from Firestone, Shelley thought it was much closer to what a classic Gewurztraminer should taste like.  She said it was sweeter than the 2005.  It caused her to think out loud that maybe the 2005 was over the hill, or at the very least heading that way.  Certainly the 2007 was crisper than the 2005 but I thought both were good. 

We have never had a bad bottle of wine from Firestone.  I don’t know why you don’t read more about Firestone Vineyards and the quality wine they produce.  They consistently make good wine at very reasonable prices.  The longer they make them, the longer we will drink them.

Until the next post, happy tasting!

Shelley tasted apples and said it was acidic and dry.  It was very different from the Sancerre.  We enjoyed it very much.

My next post will be a comparison between two Gewurztraminers (I waited as long as I could so I didn’t have to write that name!) from Firestone Vineyard, a 2005 and a 2007.  Stay tuned.