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The Georgia Wine Review, 2592 Old GA-441, Tiger, GA (2026)

11/06/2022

I have not held back my occasional skepticism and continual concern regarding the Norton grape. and that’s ironic – I grow it in my own vineyard and have harvested it in a friends vineyard for years. it has a good résumé. It has resistance to local nasties. it looks mostly pretty. What is not to love?

Well first, it taste like the cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving – and not a good kind. It lingers in the mouth like a sucker punch. it’s the kind of homemade country wine that I feel like the Ozark Mountain daredevils used to sing about. The kind where you would wake up married to someone you’ve never met.

For a lot of years people have tried to do something decent with Norton grapes and have fallen far short.

Tiger Mountains rosé is not only the best expression of Norton I have had. It is not only the best Georgia rosé I have had. It might well be the best rosé I have ever had – and that’s saying a lot because I have had a lot.

They’ve done something magical here. Rosé used to be reserved for people who smoked 1 foot long ci******es and had hair that required a flammability sign. then it evolved to the go to for charcuterie which is the current hip way to eat salami. even then, the wine was a dry two off dry pink phenomenon with some alcohol in it I guess.

But Tiger Mountain has done something different. This one has a bunch of peaches and strawberries. I don’t even know where you find those in Norton grapes. The wine glows with an ember golden shimmer that gives me the shimmers. Unlike the dry, lip pucker frozenness of the typical unwilling date of a cured meat platter, this rosé brings its own personality and might get on the dance floor.

The wine smells of crisp mountain air and citrus. It has a near perfect mouth fill with enough viscosity and acid to be both filling and cleansing. The flavor is citrus and tropical with a interesting finish quite like a near perfect ripe peach.

Bravo Tiger Mountain vineyards! You have broken some new ground and did it with a native grape. that is truly something special!

88 points

11/05/2022

It has been a while since we’ve evaluated some Georgia bottles. To be honest, a kids sporting event is really what took us North and we use the opportunity to stop by Tiger Mountain vineyards.

I did not linger around the Vineyard much. We took a look at some soon to be harvested clusters and the overall landscape and I did a quick tasting before grabbing some bottles to bring home to evaluate.

The 2021 Viognier is packaged nicer than most bottles in Georgia. I like the new labels that Tiger Mountain is using. Very professional and clean looking design. I must’ve missed the main tasting room at first and ended up back at the barn.

The wine had a very beautiful light gold color that I am very fond of. It smelled of pear, citrus and honeysuckle. It had a perfectly appropriate structure with good acid and a fresh mouth feel. It tastes of grapefruit and pineapple. Overall an incredibly delicious and refreshing wine. Tiger Mountain had not been on our radar so much lately but they certainly are now.

88 points

09/22/2019

Harvesting scuppernongs to make country champagne!

09/21/2019

It’s Scuppernong season and I don’t know if that’s good or bad for reviewing white wines. Scuppernongs have such a delightful floral aroma and we gave in and harvested a few buckets currently bubbling in our fermenter. I’m not normally one for muscadine or scuppernong wines but my newfound love of the Symphony grapes in La Fleur piqued my interest.

I worried that the delightful aromas of scuppernongs might set a high bar for the more subdued aromas of a chardonnay and throw off my compass -so we kept of distance from the fermenting, eventual sparkling wine we’re currently making to enjoy something from our friends in the mountains.

I really like Bear Claw and I’ve been waiting for a free weekend to go stay in their tree house. But tasting rooms and tree houses are one thing and Chardonnay is another. I have a love/hate thing with Chardonnay born of box wine and weddings where the wine budget was trimmed a bit much. Attempts to get away from flat flavors and too much oak took our interest overseas but this new commitment to Georgia wines meant we would have to see what we love and what we hate from this corner of the wine would.

Bearclaw’s 2016 Chardonnay is fantastic. It glowed in the glass with flickers like gold tinsel. The aroma is one of orange blossoms and a cool spring breeze. The wine is well structured with perfect mouth feel and good balance of tartness/sweetness. It tastes of citrus and green apples with a slight cedar towards the finish. The wine is so fresh and fruit forward that I thought I was drinking something more akin to a chenin blanc. The finish was a bit twisty and complicated which could work itself out with time but didn’t while we were drinking it.

A solid performance from Bear Claw and a great summer wine to cool off these still hot days.

88 points

08/10/2019

I’ll admit that beyond my giant grape encyclopedia, I don’t know a whole lot about Vidal Blanc. I do know that the grapes are often used to make sweet wines and that’s why Cartecay’s 2016 Vidal Blanc was a bit of a mystery to me.

The wine is brassy gold with a nice luminescence. It smells of apples, waterfall and has a hint of cedar to it. The taste is that of berry but it is subdued. The finish is far more complex and layered. The wine only opened a little after we let it breath. It took on more green apple notes and the back end harmonized a bit more.

This is a grape and wine style that I’ll need to study more and I’ll certainly share what I learn here. If I could find a term to fully describe the wine, I’d say it’s restrained. I kept waiting for a brilliant apricot or grapefruit to leap out- but it never happened.

I’ll come back to this wine when I’m a little smarter about it. There’s still a lot of mystery there.

74 points.

07/21/2019

It been a few weeks since I’ve posted a review and it’s nobody’s fault but mine. My wife and I sat out on the porch one afternoon and opened the bottle of Georgia Winery’s Chardonnay. I kids were on the slip and slide and I really didn’t feel like getting out the wine journal so I did not do a rating of any rigor.

The same thing happened on the 4th. We had friends over and I raided the wine fridge and popped bottles without bothering to note the things worth noting.
For that reason, I’ll give you some basic tasting notes but no score because I don’t think it’s fair.

Georgia Winery’s Chardonnay was tough on me. First, either there were supposed to be bubbles in the bottle or the wine continued to ferment in the bottle. Either way, the residual sugar was gone and the wine was very dry. A little more carbonation and it might have been a nice champagne if the bottle did not explode first.

On the 4th, we tasted Chateau Meichtry’s 2018 Albarino and Cartecay’s 2015 Traminette. These were both excellent wines and a perfect level of crispness and refreshing for a hot independence day.

I continue to be impressed with the wondrous creations being made from the Traminette grape here in Georgia. These wines makers are really on to something and it’s worth your attention.

Stay tuned for more actual reviews with scores. I promise I’ll give a better effort to not be distracted by the slip and slide.

07/08/2019

So. Things are getting serious. Guns are drawn!

06/30/2019

Were there supposed to be bubbles? We found a few surprises in this bottle of Chardonnay. Stay tuned for the review.

06/29/2019

So. I gave in. After so many bottles with no clue what grapes lurked within, I finally gave in and did some research. At least with the bulky reds with names like “big boy red” I could guess some Cab Franc, a ton of Norton and whatever else seems to be lying around the cellar but this bottle of 2018 La Fleur from Chateau Meichtry gave up no clues. Luckily their website and a few big wine books in our study did.

Traminette is becoming a new favorite for me. The grape is the result of some skillful breeding in hopes of making something a lot like Gewurztraminer - but in a table grape and grown in Illinois. The Symphony grape an offshoot of Muscat and is often used to make a sweet or off-dry wine. Chateau Meichtry brings these two relatively newer varietals together in a truly standout wine that is a testament to the vigor and potential of new world winemaking.

The hue is a lighter gold/silver and the aroma is one of pears, peaches and grape effervescence. The structure and acidity is near perfect with an appropriate amount of crispness and a satisfying amount of body. We tasted melon and citrus. The wine also has that intriguing backend that one might expect in sauternes or ice wine-, which is unsurprising with the Muscat family contribution. In the layered and complex backend we tasted a faint but distinct note of…watermelon. I’ve never tasted watermelon in a wine before.

This is another slam-dunk by Chateau Meichtry as their Reserve Cab is the only wine to break our 90-point mark thus far. Making a world class, old world red and then shifting gears and setting the standard with a new world white shows this is not simple luck. There’s talent in the cellar at Meichtry. Along with some incredible wine.

89 points

06/28/2019

We’re drinking this Chateau Meichtry 2018 La Fleur. Stand by for review. FYI: do not judge the color of wine this way! Use a white piece of paper!

06/27/2019

I’ll admit it. I saw the name and bottle and thought the coyote bought it with a selection of rockets and snow skis in an elaborate scheme against the roadrunner. I was uncertain if the year-less GW meant Georgia Winery or Generic Wine. On the back was a description telling me what Merlot means in French, advice that it’s a good starter wine for people trying red wine and something about sweet southern style- which I have no idea what that means. One entertaining note- the description uses the phrases “laid back” and “fine wine” are just a few inches from each other.

I felt like the bottle was apologizing before I even opened it.

It’s Merlot so I conjured all my biases against Merlot no matter what the label says or looks like. I poured into the crystal tower (a big formal decanter to impress dinner guests but with no real functional advantage) and let it take a breath. We used the big bells though the Bordeaux glasses would have been more appropriate. I tipped the glass to check the color over a white piece of paper like every reasonable human should and guess what.

Georgia Winery has done something awesome with Merlot.

The hue is a deep violet like what Dracula’s drapes should look like if he has any taste. The smell is a deep, delicious grape soda/ candy. It tastes of apples, spice, what I image apple flavored airheads candy taste like if they exist and the perfect and freshly drowned camp fire. The structure is solid and there is a subtle but noticed astringency just to remind you it’s not kool aide. It’s beefy and you know how I like beefy.

We paired it with meat loaf, which is a real battle royale because we serve it with honey mustard sauce, a version of street corn and plenty of reasons for a red wine to run in retreat. Yet, it worked. Even with the spicy mustard- it hung in there.

So throw off your biases against Merlot. Georgia Winery has made merlot great again and you should drink it with pride. It’s more fine wine than laid back no matter what the bottle says.

80 points

06/26/2019

It was kind of Crane Creek Vineyards to shorten the name from zusammengeschmolzen to simply Zusa-lest some poor sommelier become terrified that his or her customer is choking rather than ordering. That said, I did not choke on the 2016. In fact, it was quite nice.

Zusammengeschmolzen translates to “melt or fuse together” and that’s exactly what the winemaker did blending Riesling, Grüner Veltliner and Traminette, effectively fusing grapes with German, Austrian and American origins together to create a very fresh and fruit-forward wine.

The color is that kind of brassy gold shimmer I get so excited about. I’m tempted paint my window frames, electric guitar and yet-to-purchase 911 Carrera gts that color once I get the chance to sneak a bottle and glass into Lowes paint isle for their colormatch guarantee.

The aroma is this wines only headwind because I detected very little. What I could smell reminded me of fresh pineapple sorbet bought from the Highs Ice Cream shop of my youth. Much like the ice cream, I wanted a bit more than I got.

The wine gives a fresh bite of citrus, tropical fruit and hints of a freshly painted room (but only if you like a freshly painted room- which I do). The acidity is nicely rounded and lingers the perfect amount. The structure is the right pair of present but does not overstay the welcome.

This is the second Crane Creek wine I’ve reviewed and I must say they are living up to all the hype I’ve heard thus far.

86 points

The Georgia Wine Review

11/06/2022

11/05/2022

09/22/2019

09/21/2019

08/10/2019

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