CedarCreek Estate Winery
Ehrenfelser
2008
13.3% alc.
Kelowna, British Columbia
Do you know ehrenfelser? Son of riesling and silvaner. The Germans bred this grape in 1929 at the Geisenheim Research Institute as a frost-resistant substitute for riesling and named it for a ruined Rhine castle, Ehrenfels. Today, German viticulture contains less than a hundred hectares of it. While the grape ripens earlier and can grow in less hospitable locations than riesling, it’s a vigorous vine demanding laborious attention. And because the acidity in ehrenfelser is not as high as in riesling, the wine does not lend itself to cellaring. It is a wine for immediate consumption.
There are experimental plantings of ehrenfelser in Washington State. However, Canada, with its cool northern terroir and its winemakers’ affinity for German hybrids, seems to have embraced ehrenfelser, much like a dog lover who takes on a stray puppy in hopes of training it into a nice, productive doggie. The variety has strong aromatic qualities and typically is used as a blending ingredient in white wines. The Canadians have gone further, though, by producing single varietal ehrenfelser table and ice wines. And they are popular.
This month I shared a couple of bottles of ehrenfelser table wine with a Canadian friend in Vancouver who enthusiastically introduced me to the 2008 CedarCreek Ehrenfelser from the Okanagan Valley just outside Kelowna, British Columbia. Most Canadian winemakers I encountered consider CedarCreek, whose ehrenfelser vines are 25 years old, to be the best producer of ehrenfelser table wine in Canada. The 2008 vintage shows a pale lemon core with pronounced youthful aromas of lychee, peach, melon and citrus. It comes medium-bodied, with quite crisp acidity and pronounced flavors of pink grapefruit, mandarin orange and pineapple. The length was quite long. Indeed, pink grapefruit dominated the trajectory of flavor from start to long, leisurely finish. On the label, the producer refers to this wine as a “fruit salad in a glass.” I’d call it a slam of grapefruit. The wine’s linear palate has the zip and energy of a darting minnow.
Yet I somehow grew fatigued by it. I wanted the insistent pink grapefruit to relax and let some other flavor emerge. I suppose one could pair this wine with Indian or Thai food. Not much more, I think. I can imagine sharing a bottle with some beautiful tanned people poolside at the Mondrian Hotel in Miami. Such people party, but don’t eat. As I said, this is a wine of the moment.
We Americans, with our constant demand for thirst-quenching flavor, will like this wine. At approximately $18.00 Canadian, this also is a superlative bargain. A pity it’s still only available in British Columbia, and at this time not even there! But the 2009 vintage looks promising. For those of us who like to travel north. 7/16/09.
