2008 Hosmer Winery Cayuga White
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on January 24, 2010
In the coming months I hope to publish a series of reviews of Finger Lakes wines produced from French-American hybrids and native American grapes. Folks who were born and raised in Central New York likely grew up hearing of if not drinking wines with names like Baco Noir or Traminette, not to mention Concord and Niagara. As a relative newcomer to the region, however, I was largely unfamiliar with these varietals, and even now I have sampled only a handful of these wines. To make matters worse, the skepticism of my downstate and out-of-state friends threatened to reawaken my own wine snobbery, an inner demon against which I have long struggled. Can wines from French-American hybrids or native American varietals really compare favorably with European Vitis vinifera varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir or Riesling? The only way to settle the issue, I realized, was to make a concerted effort to taste these wines.
I initially decided to review the 2008 Hunt Country Vineyards Valvin Muscat, which I heard was worth checking out, but a search of local wine shops failed to turn up a bottle. Peter’s Skytop Liquors, an unassuming wine shop over by Syracuse University with a good selection of Finger Lakes wines, however, offered a number of interesting alternatives, and after a bit of consideration I selected a bottle of the 2008 Hosmer Winery Cayuga White. Cameron and Maren Hosmer have been farming their 60 acre vineyard, located on the west side of Cayuga Lake, since the mid 1970s, and released their first wines in 1985. Like the majority of Finger Lakes wineries, Hosmer is best known for their dry and off-dry Rieslings, which have won numerous awards, but they also have earned a reputation for producing some serious Cabernet Franc, Lemberger and Chardonnay.
Cayuga White, as I subsequently learned, is one of the hybrid varietals developed at Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY, and is a cross between Seyval Blanc, a French-American hybrid, and Schuyler, an American Vitus labrusca varietal (the native American grape species that includes Concord and Niagara).
The first noticeable quality of the wine was how pale it was in the glass. At first glance it appeared almost as clear as water, but closer inspection revealed a very pale yellow hue. The initial aromas were also pretty subdued, but a bit of coaxing – giving the wine a good swirl in the glass – released aromas of tangerines and clementines, as well as a slightly astringent note that reminded me of the orange-flavored St. Joseph’s aspirins I took as a child.
The citrusy aromas carried over to the wine’s surprisingly delicious flavors, which married citrus with the flavors of Golden Delicious apples and ripe Anjou pears. The taste also triggered another childhood memory, that of orange creamsicles, a summertime favorite. With 2.5% residual sugar the wine was off-dry but not as sweet as I expected, and was offset by moderate acidity. Although the wine was light-to-medium bodied, it delivered a good mouthful of ripe fruit flavors that continued through the mid-palate into a reasonably long finish.
If this wine is a fair example of what Cayuga White can produce in the hands of a skilled winemmaker, it can’t match the structure or complexity of a good Finger Lakes Riesling. But it comes close, and on a warm July evening, with friends and light summer fare, it would be very quaffable and satisfying. Which, I expect, is all that the winemaker intends, and – at $8.99/bottle – all anyone can reasonably ask of the wine.
My downstate wine buddies, who think they’re getting a deal when they pay $39.99 for an Aussie Shiraz on CinderallaWine.com, will never be impressed with this wine. But as I have learned from experience, more specifically from a year-and-a-half without full-time work, a well made, reasonably priced wine like this is all I need to wrestle my wine demon into submission, and it makes the hard times all that more liveable.