Hogue Genesis Riesling 2010 (California)

Let’s get this out of the way before we start! Riesling, by most standards, is considered a sweet and almost dessert-style wine. Quite often begin shunned by most “serious” wine drinkers, with ridiculous rhetoric like “sugar water” and “soda pop” As I have blogged before Riesling is quite an underestimated grape. Riesling, when made right, can be one of the purest expressions of a grape. This on the basis that the wine doesn’t go through a huge degree of manipulation by the winemaker with different crazy fermentation's, heavy oak aging, and other processes which make a wine taste like something it’s not
supposed to.The best Riesling’s are just grapes, fermented, in a bottle.

On the pour this wine is bright with just a tinge of yellow. Aromas of pear, fresh river water (I know right?) but that is what I was reminded of when I smelled this wine, not a bad thing, I actually like that smell. The sugar is restrained, and it’ll be a surprise to most how dry the Hogue is. Pear and green apple flavors dominate, with orange and a little lime mingled in. Strong minerality, and a short-medium finish. I likey, but would be better with food and tasted better the next day after it softened a bit.

Hogue is one of Washington’s largest wineries, with a production of over 650,000 cases. The Columbia Valley region is actually shared between both Oregon and Washington State. The region contains about one third of Washington’s wineries. Columbia Valley is a HUGE wine growing region, covering 11 million sq acres (that’s over 17,000 square miles in non-farmer speak). Only about 17,000 acres (26 sq miles) are planted to vines.