The first time we visited Dry Mill Vineyards and Winery we were pleasantly surprised by what we found. The space was well-scaled and welcoming, the staff was friendly, and the wines were solid. First visits, however, can be deceptive. High or low expectations can color an experience, so it’s always important for us to make a few more visits. We finally found the time to make a second visit to Dry Mill. We still found friendly staff and a nice space, but we really went for the wine.
When we were there, 8 wines were being poured. We started with the ’09 Barrel chardonnay ($19). This wine is aged in half new and half neutral oak. I noted floral and lemon on the nose and soft oak with lemon and apple on the palate. There’s nothing wrong with this wine, but it was also fairly uninteresting. The ’10 viognier ($22) actually has 25% steel chard blended in. It offered a light floral nose but struck me as rather flat when I sipped. I noted floral with a hint of apple and feel like the chard really took over this wine.
We took a turn to the red with the ’08 chambourcin ($19). This was a fairly light-bodied wine, so the leather notes took me by surprise. There was some enjoyable soft red fruit on the palate, but there was some earthy funk (sorry, I can’t really think of a better way to describe it) on the nose that I had trouble getting past. The ’08 merlot ($19) offered a pepper/anise nose with a hint of red fruit before more berry flavors come out on the palate. The ’09 merlot ($22) was my favorite of their wines, however. It offered earthy cherry/plum notes that worked for me. The ’09 petit verdot ($22) was not working for me. I got cooked mixed berry notes and just wanted to move on.
We ended with 2 sweeter wines. The first was the ’09 traminette ($19) – sorry, I din’t catch the residual sugar on this one. We were told that the traminette juice was blended with some gewurzrtaminer concentrate, and the influence of that was noticeable. The nose was all roses, something I often find with gewurtz, and I described the palate ass granny panty floral. Moving on…. The final wine was the ’10 chambourcin rosé ($18) with 2% residual sugar. Again, I had a “meh” reaction. It struck me as a slightly woody/stemmy sweet wine – fine if you like that, but nothing memorable or unique.
Anyway, we won’t be rushing back to Dry Mill anytime soon, but if you check it out, be sure to let us know what you think and keep us up to date on their offerings.
The Ghost of Yogi Berra Declares Winery Visit Isn’t Deja Vu All Over Again, Still Steals Pic-a-nic Basket by Swirl, Sip, Snark, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
A curiosity question, ~ they no longer grow/produce a Norton wine? We picked up several bottles in 2008 (Norton/Mourvedre blend) which now have rounded out quite nicely. Though there have been several new Virginia Norton wineries coming ‘online’ over the past few years, are you finding others dropping Norton wines from their inventory?
Rhodies – the definitely make wines that weren’t being tasted or sold the day we were there, so a norton or a norton blend may well be part of their line up. I actually forgot that they do a norton since we’ve never been there when it’s available for tasting, so it didn’t even occur to us to ask about it. As for wineries dropping norton, some definitely have. I’ve vaguely heard through the grapevine that some wineries used to by fruit from Chrysalis and that they’re now selling less of it, so fruit availability may play a role. Also, as winemakers change, the profile of wines being made at a given winery may also change, so that may be part of what you’re seeing.