Which States Make The Best Tasting Wine? (Alabama-Missouri) | World Of Wine | Bon Appétit

oh my God oh my God um wow did you know that every state in the U.S produces wine hey this is somebody Andre Houston Mack and I'm going to be tasting wine from every single state in the U.S today is part one Alabama through Missouri did you know that you can actually find wine in Alaska Hawaii and that's kind of why I'm excited today these aren't generally wines that I would work with and or regions that I'm familiar with but that's what's really exciting about wine to me is that you can't know everything and I'm sure that there's lots of things that I don't know about these wines or where they come from but I'm eager to taste them all right our first date Alabama this is Morgan Creek Vineyards the Regal red this actually looks like the Crimson Tide oh I'm a little afraid I'm sorry to say I'm a little uh smells slightly sweet ripe I never really had anything like that you know it's it's pretty interesting I guess the first thing I didn't realize is that it was going to be sweet not like a pork sweet in that way it does have some acidity to it I can't talk right now just because of the sides of my tongue are tingling I'm salivating it also has like kind of like a Sherry quality to it too it's a slightly nutty in a way the sweetness in this wine is due to stopping the fermentation so there is some residual sugar left in the wine this wine is from Alabama geographically very different than like say a place like France or California it is a lot warmer there the warmer it is the riper the fruit ripe fruit means more sugars this is actually a muscadine grape and muscadine is the grape species that is uh native to North America a lot of the wines that we probably will taste today are sweet wines right local wine is made to go with the local food in in Pacific regions are making wines for those specific taste palettes and there I don't think there's anything wrong with that I'm not sure that I would drink this every single day but it's just kind of cool to know that it's out there and kind of fun next date is Alaska this is blueberry wine so you can make wine from any fruit just so happens like what's most popular in the world that I come from is grapes but wine can be made from even flowers as well but this is made from blueberries which I've never had before oh my God it smells like blueberries somewhat but then like underneath that there's kind of like this little bit of like Pine-Sol kind of disinfectant that like is kind of mixed in there with that smells like a sterile hospital room you know it's kind of one of those things the first time like you have beers or like liquor or something like that oh you know don't worry about it sunny you got to get used to it I don't know if I could ever get used to this there's not a lot of complexity to the wine and fills a lot of you know pretty one-dimensional I've actually had a lot of words I just wouldn't drink this I'm sorry I just you know that's like no disrespect making wine is science but also it's an art the science part tells you hey Grapes don't grow well here what else could we do and as an artist you say what else could we plant here so if blueberries Thrive there then how about making a little bit of blueberry wine so here's the Artistry next date Arizona oh look at that color dark Rich color there I'm familiar with ones from Arizona the Sandy soils are kind of very similar to Iraqi and Sandy soils in um in their own the south of France so they tend to be you know stylistically almost kind of the same but a little bit more rounder rich and slightly exaggerated and that's all due to you know its proximity to the equator it's just a lot hotter there this smells like a little bit of clove cinnamon a little chocolate covered Cherry it does smell like a furry animal I mean that in a great way I think every time I say something like this I think that you guys think that I'm like full of [ __ ] but like it does kind of smell like pet in my mother-in-law's dog you know foreign short finish I actually taste a little bit uh caramelized in a way and maybe that's through the heat getting a lot of like tingling sensation in the front part of my teeth there's like cherries pomegranates there's this light kind of like acetone to this wine which I kind of see as a fault I think for some people they've embraced it as a style and people enjoy it but it's kind of hard for me to sometimes to get past that in a wine maybe that's something that developed you know in this particular vintage but I would definitely give it a shot next vintage and see how it turned out Arizona what's interesting about this is that they chose to plant what we call the noble grape so the grape species that are more indigenous to Europe and they found a place in Arizona this microclimate that they felt that these great varietals would do well when you think of something like muscadine those are a different species of grape that are native to North America Next State Arkansas so this is Chateau Ozark this is from the Ozark Mountains and this is called Savant Arkansas white table wine so that's interesting because as you look at it it clearly it looks like it is red so I don't know the law here but clearly it doesn't look white but it is listed as a white table wine it smells you know musky you know I think it's it's muscadine it's kind of the culprit there there's some vanilla component to it a little bit of cinnamon it tastes like caramelized sugar if you were to burn cotton candy that's what it kind of tastes like to me that's not a good thing if it's your thing then it's a good thing it's not my thing so uh and definitely I wasn't expecting that feels like it's like part wind and you know part Mead so like made from honey so it has like this musky thickness to it but not very glowing I am salivating so I feel like there is some acidity to it but it needs food like I don't think most people could actually drink a full glass of this it's like a liquefied fruitcake when you see musket on them starting to realize maybe there's some sweetness to the wine it's slightly matterized or like burnt a little bit in some way next state California all right so we have BV Vineyards this is Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley one of the most famous wine regions in the world so when people generally think about wine in the United States or talking about wine in the United States this is the what we're talking about right here first off kind of campfire smokiness to it raspberries violets just a little bit of hint of cranberry really rich tannins bitter chocolate Cassis raspberries this is a classic example of California Cabernet it has concentration some of the earlier wines of fruit wines we tasted didn't have this depth of concentration to it and like this kind of depth of flavor that kind of keeps going and keeps going here there's some complexity to it and a little bit more Elegance uh to it as well this is like a warm hug this is something that I that I know and that I embrace and that I'm most comfortable with California is the standard barrier here between 80 and 90 of all wine produced in the United States is produced in California it is one of the largest states in America and with that comes you know A diversity uh in in climate so you can plant all different types of grapes and in particular for wine you know it has like this really great soil content microclimates but also it you know it abuts the Pacific Ocean you want hot days so the grapes can ripen phenolically but also you want cool nights so the wines can retain some type of acidity and California is really kind of great for that next state Colorado so this is brookcliff Vineyards Malbec 2020. I'm looking at that color very dark kind of deep purplish Hue so it looks like mail back to me roasted meat blackberries lots of vanilla I would attribute that to maybe it's Oak regiment and a little bit of um black pepper I like the way that the wine flows it is you know pretty refined for mailbox in general the tannins are pretty well integrated I'm a little taken aback because of a little bit of the sharpness of the alcohol in it but all in all I think it's a well-made wine of consequence I was like all right we're gonna taste the Colorado wine today cool and then when I looked at I said Malbec and I kept thinking to myself like okay the highest elevation Wines in the world actually come from Argentina and Colorado is known as you know high altitude mileback thrives there in high elevation why wouldn't it thrive in Colorado next state Connecticut all right this is called Stonington Seaport white this is a blend of Chardonnay and Vida Blanc oh this smells kind of fresh smells slightly soapy not in a bad way like a little bit of potpourri green apple uh and then like maybe a little Peach Pit wow yeah really peachy there's some acidity to it but it's not overly acidic just enough like it feels very fresh and Lively and then it's got like this really kind of sturdy base it has like a structure to it and maybe that comes from the Chardonnay this is actually rather enjoyable so this is in Stonington you know right there on the coast it's hot enough for the grapes to ripen but it's like cool enough like to to have the wines have like some type of crisp and freshness to it cool climate Chardonnay tends to be like more apples and pear flavors but cooler climates you know tend to have uh lead with like less fruit this wine is an example of that it has fruit but it's not over ripe it has a little bit of like the sweetness to it I like this one next date Delaware this is salted Vines this is like potpourri jumping out of the glass cotton candy I definitely think it's going to be sweet moose got gummies I I refer to this all the time I'm not real sure if everybody's ever had them but they're like gummy bears but grape flavored this is what that smells like to me it's sweet uh not the thick sweet in in any type of way it's not good it's not my favorite you know at least that's what I tell my children to say it tastes pretty flabby flabby just means the wine has no acid there's no spring to it doesn't feel fresh or like Lively in in any way the aftertaste of my mouth is kind of like after like you taste uh like Robitussin this is not like anything I've ever had before you know it's aromatics but then also like this funkiness that comes maybe from the grape to me is just a little bit too overpowering something that I can't get past uh in order to be able to enjoy the wine all right so I want to break down a little something for you um that most people may not understand not all wine grapes are produced in the state in which they are made you can produce wine from grapes in Delaware uh that were actually grown from another state in particular this wine it actually The Grapes were grown in Pennsylvania and then they brought them to their Winery in Delaware and the wine was produced there made there here I think you know what we have to really understand is that it's from Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania and Delaware are adjoining States so you know when we talk about chowar Tor doesn't really you know encounter you know state lines or anything like that so uh it's still Regional so next state Florida this is called orange sunshine and this is made with real oranges I've never had a wine made from oranges I would have to say that this was probably the one that I had the most energy about I don't know if that was nervous energy or excitement energy or anything like that but this is the one that I was most interested in like experiencing you know this smells more like orange zest than like when I think about an orange it smells like something I should probably wear or like dab instead of something that I should drink it tastes kind of like if a Sunny D could ever go bad I don't know if SunnyD could ever go bad I think they like stayed in the refrigerator for years really rich and slightly artificially orange like a Sunny D this is weird I mean it's just like a weird kind of experience like then again not all that bad like I would use this to make a cocktail with I couldn't drink a full glass of this but I think the best way to probably enjoy this to me would be by adding some vodka or gen to it next state Georgia so this is curry he Vineyard this is a muscadine man this smells like some artificial candy I had like when I was a kid it smells like Bubblicious like uh like chewing gum it's very fruity fragrant it tastes like potpourri it's musky this is muscadine it reminds me of the first wine that we tasted from Alabama which was also a muscadine wine it's bright it's got a lot of fruit and flavor to it but like all of it tastes very artificial and then like a hint of like there's this cologne to it that uh that doesn't really make it very pleasurable to drink next date Hawaii so this is called Maui Blanc and guess what it's made from pineapples part that I feel that that it's really funny I'm like really laughing inside I'm trying to hold it in generally like when you see people taste wine or talk about wine they talk about all these things that actually aren't in the wine oh yeah this is uh this Chardonnay has lots of tropical fruit but I'm really getting up front is pineapple but there's actually no pineapple in that wine that they're talking about because it's made from Chardonnay and this wine I smell pineapple because it's actually pineapple in it very clean very fresh and not like dull from a can this is like fresh pineapple so this is an interesting thing about this wine is that it's not sweet at all this tastes like you know a Central Coast from California tropical kind of Chardonnay without any texture or body to it you know almost kind of slightly fills watered down not rich or sweet or anything like that and maybe that's really what I was expecting but this is Pleasant it's refreshing it seems to be well made you know of quality in the category of all the fruit wines I tasted today I would have to say this is probably the best one next state Idaho so this is uh Saint Chapel this is a Muscat Blanc and this is called open air uh smells like Muscat to me it's like a very fruit forward pears peaches it's pretty light but not in a bad way it's kind of like a weird minerality in it and almost tastes like a jalapeno actually unless with the heat but like more of that flavor it's really strange and in a way there's no texture to this wine does it feel like there's layers not a lot of flavor I don't think it's a bad wine but like it definitely seems to fall short and be somewhat flabby there's no zippers in it just like kind of it's like blah on your palette it's not lively in any way next State Illinois and this is made with a grape called chamborsen really dark kind of violet color here Jim Bush and I've never had it before I think I just learned how to say it about 20 seconds ago so this is a French hybrid grape and all that means it's that one of its parents is from Europe and other parents is here from the United States they make these Great Vines that are really kind of resistant to pesticides and disease and generally speaking phylloxera this looks really interesting um it smells like a funny enough blueberries and raspberries very kind of like fruit forward almost like what we like to call like kool-aid-esque just like some pepper like black peppercorn that I'm getting so there's a like a spicy element to it seems pretty light body very short finish seems like it really kind of dissipated and I hadn't drunk anything it doesn't feel really complex like I mean it's not really giving much off the nose or uh even you know expressing any type of layers of flavors on the palette it feels like a medium body wine that's like a cross between Merlot and Syrah you know there's not concentration in this wine there's not a depth of flavors or anything like that so it doesn't really feel like it's uh of quality I'd love to taste other versions of this at you know various price points just to kind of get a better idea and grasp on it but like it's kind of cool next state Indiana so this is called uh Holt comp this is trebonet it definitely has a kind of a spicy kind of smell to it right away like when I smell groovich demeanor that kind of makes sense uh good version is one of the parent grapes so this smells kind of like a little bit of Pineapple nectarine a little bit of uh kind of grassy notes to it so I wasn't expecting it to be sweet I think that was a pleasant surprise what I was dreading is that it would be like fermented completely dry and then not have any acid or any any texture or layer to it um this is this is pretty fun it's a little bit of Pineapple there's a peach and nectarine there a wet rock or like stone fruit too it's interesting if you look at its parent converged demeanor is generally found in Germany and also also colder regions so you know it tends to do well in those environments and so I would think that it would do well in Indiana as well this is actually said it was bottled in a town called nuasas in Indiana and I think that kind of backs up the fact of you know immigrants moving to United States planning what they know from back home and so it makes sense that they would choose gevurch demeanor here even the name suggests that that they might be from Germany or from all sauce and probably is the reason why they chose this particular gray pin and why I'm a fan of it all right next State Iowa so this is a wide river this is called red-handed so this is a Cabernet and I think there's a local grape a native grape called petite Pearl which I have no familiarity with a very fruity uh there's some earthiness to it I smell a little bit of mushrooms kind of like a rich kind of cherry component to it this is kind of really a light bodied there's no mid palette it feels like there's really nothing there it's just like Kool-Aid like flavored water not much Nuance to it kind of disappointed in a way where I think in all the regions in southern France that the wine reminded me of and then when I taste it there's like really nothing there I would assume that I was a really tough place to grow wine just because of hot summers that you know bring on disease but also you know cool climate which kills plants and grapes if you wanted to just the smell your wine this is this is a great example of that but if you want to drink it not so much so very promising on the nose disappointing on the palette next State Kansas this is Grace Hill Winery and this is called Peckerhead red smells like muscadine so these are all native grapes there's Concord shamborsen and Norton I don't think I've ever had this combination before um it smells very uh potpourri very perfumed but wow it is pretty sweet yeah this tastes like um like grape flavored wine right if you're drinking like a wine cooler or something like that so it feels very fruity up front very Jammy it's not like a dessert wine that has like layers and intensity to it or anything like that this is just sweet and then not sweet once you finish it quality wise like I mean it feels all really put together but man I can't get over the sweetness I can't even have a full glass of this but this wine isn't made for me you know and that's quite all right next state Kentucky so this is a cabernet from a winery called pocaterra This is just labeled as American Cabernet Sauvignon and no vintage this looks like Cabernet looks dark you know kind of has the color characteristics associated with California aha uh right off the bat smells like Cherry Cola to me I would say it's pretty thin for a Cabernet it almost tastes slightly hot so high in alcohol there's no weight to it there's nothing to it it feels like a light body Cabernet there's definitely that reoccurring thing of like the canned green beans which sometimes means that the The Grapes were harvested too early or they're young Vines it's probably cropped at a high yield when we talk about yield just like how many grapes that you can grow on an acre and the more that you grow on the acre the less concentrated the wine will be but you get a bigger yield but like less flavorful fruit a lot of the decisions that you make in the vineyard are you know are based on cost some people drop fruit where they go through and cut fruit off because it's too much and you want to concentrate the fruit that's still hanging on the vines which is a very expensive process to do in some places people just think that you know from a business standpoint it's just outright crazy I didn't even know that they made Cabernet in Kentucky this probably wasn't the best shining example of that but maybe there's one that exists next state Louisiana so this is a Landry Vineyards Blanc Dubois this is another hybrid here but like you know high heat and humidity Foster like diseases that's why they use hybrids here you know it's white wine but it's it's more golden than most you know that tells me maybe that the wine is a little bit older it almost smells a little bit like um like a banana peel a little bit of cardamom and then like a little bit of like kind of like citrus oil almost Stony and minerally it almost kind of has like a slight tinge like butterscotch to it and that can mean that it's been in the bottle old or during some of the aging process it was exposed to air I was expecting this wine to be sweet I'm presently surprised that it's not actually not bad you know not bad at all and it really reminds me of some of the wines in uh in the Jura in France definitely different climate Styles but that kind of oxidative minerally style white wines it's shocking to me how much this mine reminds me of wines from that particular area I'm definitely intrigued by this wine this really tastes like something from the Jura and like that hasn't excited to want to share that with my fellow Geeks next state Maine so this is a dragonfly farm and Winery and this is Apple table wine so this is not apple cider this is apple wine so this is taking apples and ferment in the same way that we would ferment grapes and going through that process to make wine that petulance and the kind of like that prickliness that you get in apple cider comes from a different type of fermentation you know this is interesting because I don't smell any Apple on it I think there's a slight slight hint of something that smells like fruit like pear but the overall smell and the thing that just whips right in the glass is uh fingernail polish remover it has a really like nutty finish nuts and apples you know people serve that all the time but I don't think that was the intention here I don't like this one next state Maryland so this is the 2019 boardy Vineyards Albarino Albarino is a grape that's indigenous to Spain so kind of fresh Lively grown on a coast let's see what what Maryland has to offer I'm familiar with the great I'm not familiar with the region so I'm a little bit excited but also a little scared like I don't know what to expect color looks a little uh dark not outside it just tells you that it has some bottle maturity it smells fresh smells like salted air that is not what I was expecting you know what it tastes like when you leave a bottle of wine open it tastes almost cooked there are some people in Oregon uh a producer who had spent like three years before they ended up in Oregon because they had did all this research around the country to figure out the best place to go Albarino there's a lot of research that goes into it I don't know if there's this was backed by research in saying hey this could grow there I can see why they would want to like you know what I mean like thinking about like growing you know the local wine to go with the food so if I think about Maryland you know I'm thinking about fish Crustaceans Seafood like all of those things that Albarino tend to like help sing this not so much next date Massachusetts so this is from a Truro Vineyards this is called diamond white we have to talk about this bottle real quick look at this it's shaped like a lighthouse it looks pretty cool to me then again I'm a sucker for packaging and stuff like that on the business side but uh this is made for the from the concord grape which is like generally used to make like grape jams and jellies and also this is one of those examples where the grapes are actually grown in New York but it's produced and bottled in Massachusetts so it's sweet I wasn't expecting that I was thinking that it would be dry so that kind of like threw me off it's not like uh over the top Suite but like there's definitely something missing there it doesn't feel complete it like kind of Dives right in the mid palette there's no there's nothing on the back end of this wine not necessarily my style but I can see how people could be attracted to it it seems like easy to knock back if this is what you like then that's all all the power to you next State Michigan so this is called 42 ice wine now this is made from Vida Blanc this is ice wine which falls into like that kind of dessert wine category so a sweet wine what that is is that the grapes are left on the vine until they freeze and so it concentrates the juice makes it sweeter and then they quickly uh crush them and then that's how the sweetness comes into the wine very concentrated and generally they come in half bottles right because most people can't drink a full bottle or we go to waste ah that smells amazing like stewed Peach pear Mirabella plum there's lots of things going on like texture I feel like it drapes over my tongue and my palate It's like got my tonsils like on a speed bag when I thought about sweet wine this was the category wine that I that I talked about where it had texture and this richness and and these layers to it and also I feel like texture gives wine a soul right it gives like a filling and these wines definitely do that this is something that I know and something that feels very familiar to me and going in today this is what I thought all of the sweet wines would taste like and they don't and so that's a great learning point for me these wines are great if you've never had ice wine it's definitely something you should try and definitely can just be you know a fun way to to end the mill whether it be with dessert or cheese or just by itself this is pretty cool to know that they make a nice wine there and and this is pretty tasty all right next State Minnesota so this is from shrom Vineyard and it's called atasca it's my first time having a wine from Minnesota oh so instead of funk there smells dry I guess like from smelling I think that it would you know that it's not going to be sweet it's really golden in color especially for uh 2021 wow that is um that's pretty strong it's pretty powerful well I just wouldn't expect it expected in that it has some tannin to it and it's peppery right so it's got like this white pepper thing to it this is weird I don't think I've ever had the grape before it feels pretty hearty you know it's not polished it's big and Rough Around the Edges it's got like my cheek spasm in over here I don't know what to think of this wine this is definitely not a flavor that that I'm accustomed to or feels enjoyable to me and there's no complexity to it like it's kind of one-dimensional like you get like this Rush of like alcohol and like this heaviness and almost like this like you've tasted cologne in your mouth and then it like that it's gone next State Mississippi this is from r r vendors and this is lamanto I never heard of that uh lamonto before I thought it was a Cuvee name and apparently it's a great yeah you know how to look at this it's like very dark um very purpley looking when I smell it it smells like that mousse got great when I smell that I automatically know that it is a hybrid grape or a native grape kind of reminds me a little bit of Syrah just like kind of like off the first whiff some spice here some like uh like a pepper spice mix it's kind of tannic so it is sucking the moisture out of my mouth there's really no fruit in the wine which just seems kind of strange and weird to me there is this fruitiness that you get on the nose that really kind of Falls flat on the palate it doesn't feel complete it's like missing something you're hearing lots of like rumbling it's about you know this movement called ABV you know anything but vinifera a lot of eager wine drinkers are like our champion in those those wines and the taste of those wines so do I think you know in the next 50 years will these be more popular yes and I would have to say within the last 10 years they're more popular the noble grapes have been grown and have a lot more history of like being worked with that come from Europe here in the United States It's relatively young our experience with grapes but I do think that some of the better known best practices will create better wines and through experience you're going to see a lot of that kind of spilled over into other parts of the of the United States where they're making wine it's really going to flourish I think we these won't be so obscure and someone in my position you know 30 40 years from now you know within that repertoire they're definitely going to be talking about native grapes all right our last wine for part one is the great state of Missouri so this is Augusta Winery and this is Norton oh right off the bat just a really kind of deep dark color Rich color very purpley so it smells very Jammy it's smoky it has a little bit of residual sugar but like really kind of faint Jammy spicy is there's some tannin to it to be honest it tastes better than I thought it would taste I guess if I had to compare this to the other Nortons that we've tasted today it's better made than those there's this kind of substance to it that you get even though I would say that this is a medium body and doesn't have this kind of lush quality to it I still think that it's well made I never think of Missouri as being like you know wine destination at all but I do believe the first Ava was conceived in is in Missouri to me that's kind of a big deal the show like maybe where things have shifted to think that that was the first place that we decided to incorporate an Ava I'm always fascinated by that all right that was the end of part one uh what a great tasting really fun I think really informational for me a job as a samoye is not only to know like just the ones that you like and enjoy but also to know what other things are out there but coming soon will be part two and we'll be tasting wines from Montana all the way to Wyoming this is kind of cool it's definitely not what I was expecting when I opened it actually I was slightly afraid uh just like looking at the overall packaging when I looked at this a little bit I was like oh this looks like it's kind of been printed off a home printer it's just a prime example that uh you know just by looking at the packaging that really doesn't tell you anything about inside

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Keywords: american wine, andre hueston mack, andre mack, ba andre mack, ba world of wine, best american wine, bon app, bon app wine, bon appetit, bon appetit wine, bon appetit world of wine, domestic wine, food, oldest red wine, orange wine, pineapple wine, red wine taste test, sommelier, sommelier red wine, sommelier taste test, sommelier wine test, united states wine, wine from every state, wine taste, wine taste test, world of wine

Id: WxAiYjUYlxw

Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022