Wine & Words

When people come into our store and see the poster of a stylish black and white cow sitting in a crescent moon and sipping a glass of wine, I love to tell the Rag Apple Lassie story. How when Frank Hobson Jr. was just a little farmer boy, the Holstein calf he raised lovingly won Grand Champion at the North Carolina State Fair. How Frank Jr. was an “early adopter” of the new movement in his native Yadkin Valley – replacing tobacco growing with raising wine grapes. Frank Jr. set to work and soon was a bit of a local expert in “viticulture.” Frank’s wife Lenna is a marketing professional, so when they decided to go beyond such growing grapes and start making and marketing estate made and bottled wines, she came up with the vineyard name and a friend drew the logo. Now they needed someone who knew how to make wine. They recruited Linda King from the largest estate winery in Ohio and together they all worked very hard and brought out the first Rag Apple Lassie wine – the 2003 Chardonnay. They took it to the North Carolina State Fair…and it won Best in Show, very much the equivalent of that earlier Rag Apple Lassie’s Grand Champion designation. You can read the whole story, with pictures, on their lovely Rag Apple Lassie Vineyards website.
It’s been several years now since we first found our winding way out to the family farm in the rolling Yadkin County hills that is now Rag Apple Lassie Vineyards. We’ve been back several times, always welcomed as old friends. Linda lets us taste her latest project and we see what’s growing in the vineyards. It’s always a refreshing trip, a reminder that winemaking is not about glitzy bejeweled people posing for the latest Wine Spectator fund raiser. It’s about people who love the land and the table and who are willing to work carefully and attentively to bring their customers a product that is so much a part of the enjoyment of the good life. I like that.
So this week we are Featuring Rag Apple Lassie wines. We’ll have tastings Friday and Saturday at Wine & Words…& Gourmet in Washington and we’ll be serving the wines by the glass at The Back Bay Café.
A Bottle Note
The Rag Apple Lassie bottle label won First Place in the Pacific Rim International contest. The logo is screen printed on Italian glass bottles originally made for olive oil. If you return bottles to us, we’ll give you the $.25 credit offered by the winery. And we’ll cash them in on our next visit.
Featured Wines
Rag Apple Lassie Zinfandel 2004, Regular Price $18.50/ Feature Price $14.80
Zinfandel is a difficult grape to raise in North Carolina’s Piedmont region. It tends to grow in tight clusters that are very subject to the molds supported by our Carolina humidity. Frank Jr. decided the growing of Zinfandel grapes was a worthy challenge for a third generation NC farmer. He located an Eastern European clone of Zinfandel that grows in long, loose clusters. It liked his farm and Rag Apple Lassie bottled the first single varietal Zinfandel in the Yadkin Valley. Winemaker Linda King let us taste this one in the barrel, before it was finished and bottled, and we knew then it was going to be something special. This is from the 2004 vintage, but don’t worry. Yvonne and I had a bottle a couple of nights ago and it was drinking real fine, with the best Zin characteristics I’ve tasted in a long time. Eat your heart out, California!
 
Kaleidoscope Gold, Regular Price $18.50, Feature Price $14.80
During our last visit to RAL, winemaker Linda King asked if we’d like to sample something “from the lab.” You know we did. She brought in some lab beakers in which she’d concocted a couple of new blends that Lenna had christened “Kaleidoscope” for the shifting mix of flavors. They were lovely, and we decided then and there that we would introduce them when they were bottled. Well, here they are.
The Gold blend came about after the Easter freeze of 2 years ago. The white grapes got bit by the frost and their yield was way down. Linda didn’t have enough of any one variety to bottle a single varietal wine, so she decided to make a virtue of necessity and came up with the Kaleidoscope blend. The wine is from 100% estate-grown grapes that were vinified separately then blended (a la the beaker Linda offered us). The predominant grape is Chardonnay, which was made unoaked so it would blend better with the others. Then there’s Viognier, which in some years yields enough for a varietal bottling, and small amounts of Marsanne, Semillon and Traminette that Linda refers to as her “blending grapes.” The result is, well, kaleidoscopic. Layers of fruit and flowers and a long, tasty finish. Serve the wine chilled either on its own or with flavorful food medleys. Thanksgiving, anyone?
 
Kaleidoscope Red, Regular Price $18.50, Feature Price $14.80
The red blend is based on Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, with the addition of the “blending grapes” Mourvedre and Petit Verdot. There’s a lot of fruit in this one, with a clean, dry finish. I inadvertently put this one in the fridge when I thought it was Kaleidoscope Gold. When I discovered my mistake, I decided to try it chilled. It was mighty tasty! Served at cool room temperature it will pair well with hearty meats and stews. Or you can just use it to show your out-of-state friends how good North Carolina wine making can be.
We’ve also got some bottles of other Rag Apple Lassie wines in stock, and we’ll be offering the Feature discount of 20% on all in-stock wines, which include:
Boonville Blanc – a classic semi-sweet Viognier
Rockford Red – a semi-sweet red blend of Cab Franc, Merlot, Cab Sauvignon and Zinfandel
Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 – a big red wine with a sunny Carolina accent