A surprisingly good and inexpensive Riesling from Pannotia Vineyards

I found this gem at the Shoprite Liquors in Little Falls. They have a pretty good selection of wines but I go there because they have the best price around on my beloved Tito's Vodka 1.75 litre bottle, just $32 and change.

As I was wondering around the store I noticed this wine on sale, it was billed as a Riesling from South Carolina. I enjoy tasting wines from other States and I have never seen anything from South Carolina. There are good wines coming from Virginia and Texas these days so for $5.99 I decided to give it a whirl.

While the wine was very good it turns out that Pannotia Vineyard, is a virtual vineyard and the wine is actually made in Germany, probably by a very good weingut.

When I first opened this bottle I was not that impressed. I still thought it was the effort of a determined South Carolina wine maker so I was forgiving and decided to let the wine sit for awhile to see what would unfold. Creating wine in regions like South Carolina is quite a challenge. Wine makers in New Jersey and Long Island have worked decades to get to the quality they have today.

I hade opened the wne to drink with food we were bringing in from Brookside Thai in Bloomfield, NJ, Review. By the way the food there has been consistently very good. Brookside is our favorite Thai place in the area.

I tasted again a half hour later and the wine had begun to open up, it was a little too cold at first. By the time the food arrived it was shaping up very nicely.

Like most Rieslings this wine offered some citrus flavors and a bright white peach, tasting like it was just out of the farmers market. The aromas were lightly floral with some green pear and apple. As it filled my mouth some lemon zest and both green and red apples were revealed. It is not a sweet wine, really off dry, it had a soft and creamy texture that complemented and contrasted with the spicy garlicky Thai food very nicely.

Fellow wino Jerry Hall reports in his blog Winewaves that "Pannotia Vineyards is a virtual winery whose name was chosen to signify bringing together the wine world ("all the world is a single continent" = Pannotia)."

He also said that "Pannotia brought on board Master Sommelier and Master of Wine Doug Frost as their consultant. I say he's a good choice."

Pannotia's labels, which are very beautiful,  "all feature paintings by Cedar Falls, Iowa 
artist Gary Kelley." I as did Jim noticed the wine because of Kelley's alluring artwork on the bottle. "Kelley's works range in scale from wine labels to 80-foot murals. You may have seen his murals in Barnes & Noble or his illustrations in Rolling Stone magazine."

Panottia wines are available in several stores around NJ, but it seems that this Riesling may be a one time bottling so if you are interested grab some now.