Bottle # 2 - Riesling

Name -- Riesling
Type -- White Table Wine Riesling
Bully Hill Description -- Lucious, fresh and crisp in the classic, German-style, with ample peach and apricot flavors. Made for seafood, salads, and light fare.
Bully Hill Dryness/Sweetness Scale (0=driest, 11=Sweetest) -- 7
Date Opened -- Wednesday, June 29, 2005. Undetermined hour
Date Finished -- Wednesday, July 6, 2005. Early evening.

Bottle Opened:
On Wednesday, June 29, Patrick, Betsey and I went to an off-Broadway show about a family band that is actually a family and a band. It is called Cecilia in the Living Room. The wonderful thing about the Zipper Theatre, where the show took place, is that there is a bar in the lobby and you can drink wine during the show.

After the show, we decided to go to my apartment and continue our wonderful drunken rally.

We got pretty toasty on some Sauvignon Blanc and went back to my apartment to drink some more.

I had planned to give Patrick a bottle of the Riesling which we sampled at Bully Hill during our wine tasting. So, we put a bottle in the freezer to chill and had some beer from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo.

Patrick left and we never opened the bottle of wine. At some point in the night, the bottle exploded but did not shatter. However, it opened itself and when I took it out of the freezer, it had frozen through. A wine popsicle.
It's defrosted now, but I may have bruised the wine a bit.
Fortunately, I don't really care about that so much.

Day# 3
We have been drinking the wine periodically for the past week. Any time the urge hits, I hit the Riesling.

The German Riesling tends to the sweeter side. The traditional Alsatian Riesling is semi-dry to dry. I have read that the Riesling grape is unique in that it best expresses the terroir, or geography, of the land where it is grown. If this is true, then this Riesling grows on a laid-back and cheerful patch of land, covered in apricot trees. The wine begins sweet but finishes much smoother. It has a heavy hand of fruit in each gulp.

Day#7:
Patrick came over yesterday with a bottle of Chardonnay from Napa Valley. He was attracted by the label. We tippled a bit before heading to the movies to see, Bewitched with his younger brother, Scott.

When I sampled the Chardonnay, Scott said my face revealed that I didn't really like the wine.

"No, it's fine. I mean, I'll drink it."

Patrick and I tried adding some ice, thinking the cold would help. But it was the overbearing oakiness of the wine that gave it a musty pallor. I decided it would be best if drunk with a meal.
I dumped out the remaining liquid from both of our glasses and poured a heavy portion of the Bully Hill Riesling into our goblets.

Patrick spoke first, "Now that is lovely!"

I plan to finish off the bottle this evening before I go visit my family.

Riesling Recommendation:
Drink this Riesling when other whites seem to be disappointing. Chill exquisitely and share with someone who is having a bad day. Or, drink a bit before you have to do something you dread. It tastes like sitting in an orchard somewhere south of the Mason Dixon, listening to Dolly Parton.