Side by Side Riesling Tasting: Four Vintners, One Vineyard

Four vintners are making wine from Potter Valley Riesling grown by Guinness McFadden - up in a sleepy (and they like it that way) corner of Mendocino (near the western border of Lake County).

McFadden has been selling his certified organic grapes to the creme de la creme of Napa wineries (Chateau Montelena's just one of them) for four decades.



If you want to do an interesting side by side tasting, consider this line-up:

1. McFadden's own Riesling ($18), 2009
89 pts., Wine Enthusiast
Off dry

2. Dashe Cellars McFadden Riesling (2009/2010)

3. Napa's 2010 Elizabeth Spencer Vineyards' Potter Valley Riesling ($30) (there's only one Riesling grower in Potter Valley and that's McFadden)
Bone Dry

4. Chateau Montelena's Potter Valley Riesling ($25)

And if you want to add one more - include not one but several vintages of McFadden's own. The 2006 was showing petrol last year - quite a bit - while the latest vintages are hugely different in character and style.

A great experience in seeing what different vinification does to the same grapes... (if you keep your vintages the same)...