The Finger Lakes region in New York has become known as producing some fantastic Rieslings.  Yes, they are great, but they also produce some great whites besides Riesling.

I recently took part in a twitter tasting of 5 of those “other whites”.  The varietals tasted were Pinot Gris, Gruner Veltliner and Gewurztraminer.  Gruner Veltliner is new to the Finger Lakes and it taking quite well to the region. Yes I am impressed!

When seeking out other white wines from the Finger Lakes, you might want to give these a try.

Thirsty Owl Wine Company 2012 Pinot Gris – While I am not a big fan of Pinot Gris, I was quite impressed with this wine.  I have to admit, I cheated as Thirsty Owl table was next to mine (Happy Bitch) at a trade show that week and I tasted the Pinot Gris.  Looking forward to more than an ounce in my glass, I embraced this wine at the tasting.  All estate grown fruit in this dry Pinot Gris that was very light in color.  It showed beautiful aromas of honeysuckle, pear, apple, citrus and some minerality.  Flavors of pear was dominate but had some lime mid palate and minerality towards the finish with very nice acidity. (yes that’s my daughter in the picture being silly)

Three Brothers Winery Stony Lonesome Estates 2011 Gruner Veltliner is all estate grown and stainless steel fermented. This is the second vintage for them.   The initial aroma I got with this wine was stinky feet.  After a few swirls the aroma dissipated that brought on a nice floral smell. There were soft flavors of pear and melon.  Even though the technical sheet says 0% residual sugar I thought it was sweet.  My residual sugar taste buds would give it a 1.2% and others taking part in the tasting thought the same. There were 300 cases of this wine produced and it retails for $14

Fulkerson Winery 2012 Gruner Veltliner – here’s another confession. I received a media sample from the winery and didn’t realize it would be one of the wines featured in this tasting.  I had reviewed this wine the week before giving it it’s own post.  You can read about it here. 

Knapp Winery 2011 Dry Gewurztraminer was a happening wine. After the grapes were harvested they sat on the skins overnight before they were pressed. Nice nose of jasmine, tangerine and some floral notes.  On the palate we saw some soft pineapple and lemon with some white spice. As a dry Gewurztraminer it did have .95% of residual sugar which balanced out the acidity nicely.   There were 116 cases of this wine produced and it retails for $14.95

Dr Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars 2012 Gewurztraminer had a beautiful nose.  Aromas of soft jasmine, wet stone and citrus with a hint of floral filled the glass.  This very nicely balanced wine had flavors of orange blossom with a slight spice on the finish.  Even thought this had 1.1% residual sugar it wasn’t a “sweet” wine.  The sugar balanced out the acidity to make it a very nice wine.  Discussions during the chat were what to pair this wine with.  Cheese Master Wendy Crispell suggested a “goey stinky washed rind cows milk cheese”  This wine retails for $14.99

Disclaimer:  I received these wines as a media sample from the Finger Lakes Wine Alliance.