Allegro's Bridge hits all the high notes

One of the wines I featured in the Jan-Feb issue of In Central Pennsylvania magazine, published by the Harrisburg Patriot-News, is Allegro Vineyard's Bridge. It's a Bordeaux-style blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc that ages for 22 months in French oak barrels and then is bottled unrefined and unfiltered.

Opened another bottle Wednesday to go with a pre Thanksgiving Day meal (in other words, the day you sit around with family and sample a few wines) and it was very, very good. Wonderful fragrance and color with just the right amount of tannins, it's something you could pair with any number of foods or simply savor as you're sitting around talking.

Carl Helrich, the winemaker and owner of the winery in The Brogue, in southcentral Pennsylvania, had e-mailed me about the history of the name at the time I was writing the story. It served as a bridge, he wrote, between the Cadenzas of former owner John Crouch and the ones Helrich was producing. You could call Cadenza, also a Bordeaux-stlye blend, the previer member of the Allegro line.

"In 2006, I felt that the wine wasn't quite Cadenza quality, but much better than our regular bottling," he said. "I brought back the name in 2006, and we bottled a 2007 as well. We may have one from 2009. We'll see."

It's selling at $27 a bottle. Definitely worth the investment. Helrich had noted that he felt this present vintage for sale (2006) would peak in 2011 and could be cellared as late as 2016 to 2018.

To Carl and wife Kris and all the other supporters and readers of this blog, Happy Thanksgiving and the many, many blessings this holiday brings.

Another one to Cross(ing) off the list

Clockwise from top: one of several tasting bars in the winery, dessert awaits a knife; and a shot of the tasting room/winery from the walkway that leads in from the parking lot.

Finally made it to Crossing Vineyards & Winery on Sunday, where a steady stream of visitors were heading up the steps and across the landscaped path to the cozy tasting room during the hour and a half we were there. It's a striking juxtoposition, the parking lot and tasting room and new warehouse sitting there, vineyards stretching as far as you can see to one side with a housing development pressing in from the other. All in all, a gorgeous setting amid the changing leaves in rural Bucks County, about 7 miles south of New Hope.

Folks were heading in for a dummies class that started around 2. Others were there tasting at one of two tables set up back in the winery itself. It was the winery's sixth birthday party, so a four-piece band was playing in one spot and a sheet cake was awaiting a few candles and a knife in another spot. Crossing Vineyard & Winery's standard tasting is 12 wines for $8, an assortment of whites and reds and what they call their original series. The one out of the latter that was opened on Sunday was Wild Berry, a delectable blend that would work well as a summer sipper and quite well on, say, a scoop or two of ice cream. Got a chance to sample their recent award winners in the Sommelier Challenge held in San Diego: the 2007 Merlot, its grapes are imported from Waltz Vineyards over in Manheim, Pa., by the way; their 2007 Cabernet Franc, really what amounts to their signature wine; and their '07 Viognier. All excellent choices among many that we sampled.

Price range, by the way, is $12 for the blush and $13 for a few of the other fruit and berry wines, into the low $20 for their award-winning reds, topping off at 28 bucks for the Pinot Noir Reserve and Cabernet Franc Reserve.

Waltz Vineyards adds expands tasting/events area at their site in Manheim

The French Oak Barrel Room: Where the wine
and its friends go to relax.

Touting wines from Waltz Vineyards in Manheim in an article in the November/December issue of In Central Pennsylvania that's put out by the Harrisburg Patriot-News. They have a good mix of mostly dry wines, so that alone merits my attention and interest. And while you cringe before tasting the juiced of some new wineries, you won't with this place. Interesting the strides they've made in terms of business, not a member of any wine trails yet pulling in a lot of folks from the surrounding community, including Mt. Gretna.

And they've found a clientele willing to pay more for a bottle than you'd expect to pay in this part of Pennsylvania with prices ranging from $18 (Rose) and $23 (a red that's an equal blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot) up to $36 (Merlot) and $42 (Cabernet Sauvignon). You might need mapquest or your GPS to find the place, but it's worth the trip just to see the Tuscan designed tasting room and what they are called their French Oak Barrel Room (as you see by the photos, called that for an obvious reason).

Fall hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursda and Friday, including Thanksgiving Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Monday through Wednesday by appointment.

No better ad for soon-to-open Waltz winery

I wanted to post this first, as a prelude to the news that Jan and Kim Waltz will be opening their Manheim, Pa., winery in a couple of weeks. Jan has established himself as a master in the vineyard, and a number of wineries that have bought his grapes during the past decade or so will vouch for that. I remember seeing an extremely positive reference to the Waltz vineyard and a review of his soon-to-be-sold in a recent newsletter by Mark Chien, the well-respected statewide Viticulture Extension Educator, and I thought it would be worth sharing before posting Jan's thoughts on the reasons for moving from supplier to more of a dual role in the wine community.

Chien wrote in his December e-letter:

"Many of you are familiar with the vineyard of Jan and Kim Waltz in Manheim, either having attended a viticulture workshop there or purchasing their outstanding grapes. Jan has always dabbled in wine making and he is one of those persons whose amateur wines are often better than many commercial wines. There is no surprise here since the vineyard is one of the most meticulously maintained anywhere. It is easy to connect the quality dots in this case … great fruit can yield great wines. There is a reason I use it as my default teaching vineyards so growers, especially new ones, can soak in the vision of what a fine vineyard looks like and get exposed to Jan’s knowledge. It was inevitable but Jan and Kim have built a beautiful winery and tasting room on the property. It’s not quite done yet but wine was made there this vintage.

"I had a chance to taste the 2007 and 2008 wines and they are remarkable. Jan had a vision of Sauvignon Blanc growing where Merlot also excelled and has planted it along with Semillon. The sauvy is a shining example of the versatility of what this variety can do, from the absolute fruit forward New Zealand version to the more restrained, creamier, nutty, barrel fermented white Bordeaux or California style. While I’m not a big chard fan in general I think we can do very fine Chardonnay in SE PA and I might have to change my tune. Jan’s blend of three Dijon clones, stainless steel and barrel fermented versions were both incredibly fruit-driven wines with pure flavors of honey, apple, citrus, full and rich in the mouth, these are truly reminiscent of Pouilly-Fuisse, especially the barrel wine with its toast and smoke. Sauvy and Chard both appear to be well suited for our region but they are both rot prone so they need great viticulture to succeed consistently. I guess we are just a white wine region.

"That is, until I taste his reds. The 2007 estate Merlot is deep in color and full in body with layers of dark fruit flavors, great structure and balance. Merlot is a fruity red that, I believe, needs blending to add complexity. That is a practice that I think we can improve upon, maybe by getting some help from outside. Jan’s could easily stand alone as a varietal but I think it could be even better with some Cabernet Sauvignon for structure, Cab Franc for that herbal note and Petit Verdot for rusticity, but I don’t know how to do it. His Cabernet Sauvignon is a surprise and delight. This block took it hard in the shins during the ‘04 freeze but they have brought it back and the 2008 is nice and ripe but with that savory quality that Jim Law describes in his reds and a character of Bordeaux. No one will mistake it for a cult Napa cab, but who would want to anyway? This is a foodie’s wine and it had me thinking of what to pair it with. Okay, well, by now you know I wear my palate on my sleeve when it comes to the Waltzes. These wines couldn’t happen to a nicer and more deserving family."