What a lovely start to the New Year! A friend dropped in for the annual open house and left without his hat. A few days later, I dropped by his house and reunited the hat and the head.
But the best part was I dropped by at dinnertime. They invited me in for a glass of wine. And a little week night supper of fried rice to boot.
But back to the wine… It was a Washington winery that I had never heard of and a grape they had never heard of – Idilico and Albariño respectively. Both were quite a surprise to me. I had no idea Washington was growing Albariño.
Winemaker Javier Alfonso, a native of Spain, believes eastern Washington is much like the wine regions of Spain with dry, desert-like climate with hot days and chilly nights. He figures the climate in eastern Washington is very similar to the climate in northwestern Spain’s Rias Baixas wine region where Albariño originates.
Washington’s Idilico Winery is really into Spanish varietals. What other Spanish grapes do they produce you ask? Well, there’s Tempranillo, a juicy and luscious Garnacha (Grenache), Monastrell (Mourvèdre), Graciano and the rare but stunning Albariño
Finicky Albariño is a quality varietal but it’s low yielding. And its skins are thick so the pulp to skin ration is very different from other white grapes.
This Albariño is from a 6 acre planting of in a cooler area of the Yakima Valley north of Prosser. The wine was fermented and aged sur lie in stainless steel for three months.
The wine has the full spectrum of floral, almond and white peach aromas with the stone fruit flavors of apricots, peaches with a bit of citrus to make it really bright. Albariño has bracing acidity from those cool nights and should be consumed in its youth as it rarely ages.
As you might imagine, production of these varietals in Washington is still very small. Their website charmingly explains, “We would like to apologize in advance if finding our wines proves to be difficult. In an attempt to help you locate the wines we will start giving updates via our Facebook Page which you can access below. Happy hunting!
Your fail safe option is to contact your favorite wine shop and ask them to order any available Idilico wines for you. Don’t be intimidated, this is done by good wine retailers all the time. Just let them know which distributor carries the wine in your area.”
Elliott Bay Distributing distributes their wines in our area and the cost about $15. Enjoy!
