Tag: Porchpounder

Season 2, Episode 9: “Florida is just fine with Sparkling Muscadine”

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Muscadine Wines, Southeast, Sparkling Wines, Unusual wines, White Wine, White wine blendsLeave a comment

Apologies for the long delay in uploading; life has again been rather rough of late.  If you want to help out, you can toss a coin to the Wine Monk over at our Patreon page. Anyway, onto the show!

We’ve visited Florida once already for something rather strange, Avocado Wine, but it’s time we return, and try something equally strange and wonderful: the Blanc De Fleur from San Sebastian Winery. This is something truly unique and astonishing: a sparkling wine made from muscadine varietals, and one with very low residual sugar at that! The gang found this wine to be a fabulous summer sparkler, and we quickly tried to figure out just which Florida Man article to pair this wine with… or even, if this wine was a Florida Man headline, what would it be?

The Blanc de Fleur was made in the Traditional Method, which we discussed in our episode featuring the RJR Brut Cuvée. However, this wine is not quite as dry as the Brut; we never really sat down to figure out where this wine would sit on the scale of sweetness vs. dryness… because this wine was that tasty.

sparkling muscadine
The Blanc De Fleur from San Sebastian Winery in Florida is a fun Classic Method sparkling wine made mostly from Carlos, one of the most common Muscadine varietals.

Episode 22: Hawaii

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Fruit Wines, Hawaii, Podcasts, Podcasts with Winery guest stars, Porchpounder-style wines, Vinifera WinesLeave a comment

Many times the first response someone has when I tell someone that there is a licensed and bonded winery making their own wine in all 50 states is, “Even Hawaii‽ Really‽”

Yes, listeners!  Hawaii has wineries!  Two of them in fact! Volcano Winery, on the big island of Hawaii itself, produces quite a few vintages, both from estate-grown grapes such as Pinot Noir, Symphony, Syrah, and Cayuga White, but also from fruit such as Jabuticaba grown elsewhere on the island and grapes imported from California.  The other, Maui Wine (formerly Tedeschi Vineyards), mostly focuses on fruit wines.  There are, as of yet anyway, no designated AVAs in the Hawaiian Islands.

The wine we focused on for our introduction to Hawaii is the Volcano Red (Pele’s Delight), which is a blend of Hawaii-grown Jabuticaba, estate-grown Symphony grapes, and Ruby Cabernet from California.  These come together to produce a delicious wine in a style that we both really enjoyed.  In this episode, Gary returns to our Podcast, and we have a surprise guest star: Kendall, who is one of the tasting room managers at Volcano Winery who was kind enough to answer the questions Gary and I had about this wine, growing grapes, and wine production in Hawaii–thanks so much Kendall!

This bottle was acquired from the vineyard itself by my friend Andi Boyce, specifically for this podcast.  Aloha, y’all.

hawaii
The Volcano Red (Pele’s Delight) from Volcano Winery provides proof that Hawaii not only makes wine, but that it is delicious.