One of our New Year's resolutions, here in Fat City, is to drink our way through Missouri and Kansas wines.
First up is Apple Wine from Weston's Pirtle Winery. The folks there produce a variety of fruit wines including blueberry, cherry, blackberry mead and a cherry chocolate wine that they're suggesting would be perfect for Valentine's Day. We'll get to that one next month.
Meanwhile, the chilled apple wine is light yellow, has a clear nose of apple cider and a slight whiff of mustard. The cider becomes more prominent as the wine warms.
The wine is drier than I expected, with a crispness and body that feels akin to a sauvignon blanc.
While it's not cidery, it definitely has the taste of apples. There's
some alcohol at the finish, but you'd have to consider this more of a
wine than a fruit wine -- which I mean as a compliment.
I paired it with pork, cabbage and mustard-green pot-stickers and a spicy sesame soy dipping sauce. This would be a great wine with barbecue -- something like smoked pork butt or pulled pork. It could also work with pizza and spicy foods.
I would have really liked this wine at $11, but at $14.97 it had trouble living up to my expectations, because you can get a decent bottle of wine for closer to $10 than $20 today.
That said, if you're looking for a non-wine-drinker's wine that might find fans among wine drinkers, this could easily fill the void in the same way cider is the non-beer drinker's beer.
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