Wine Tasting: Vermont’s Lake Champlain Region

(For an intro on my rating scale/context on our taste profile, see this post)

Snow Farm Tasting Room

Overall grade: C

Summary:

The Lake Champlain region is very pretty, and we were excited to learn that there were wine tasting opportunities in the area. We hung out primarily on the east coast of the lake in the Burlington area, and had a chance to drive through several islands. See here for that update.

We only visited two wineries, see below, enjoyed one and did not enjoy the other. Both tasting rooms were situated on pretty vineyard properties, and the physical presentation of the wines was nice, but there was very little in the way of storytelling/engaging with the proprietors.

More about the region (from the Addison County Chamber of Commerce website): Lake Champlain’s deep waters create a micro-climate favorable for growing grapes, apples, and other fruit. The long growing season allows high quality fruits to mature, ensuring that Vermont-grown fruit will make the highest quality wine.  Vermont's vineyards, wineries and cideries are producing internationally award winning wines with cold hardy grapes grown locally such as Frontenac, Lacrescent, and St. Croix, as well as from more traditional varieties like Riesling. Our unique climate is also excellent for bee-keeping, apples and berries, and our meads, ciders, and fruit wines reflect that.

Wineries:

Shelburne Vineyard: 😐

Ambience: 🏰 🌅 ⛲️

Presentation: ❌

The location was great, in the middle of Shelburne, a suburb of Burlington, VT. The outside tasting patio was very attractive. As Craig would say, this did not suck:

We were excited to see several grape varietals we had not had before on the menu, as well as some ciders. Unfortunately, we didn’t enjoy them at all. We were also disappointed in the experience as a whole, particularly since the staff just dropped off all the tasters without telling us anything about any of them.

Some specific comments:

• The reds were uniformly disappointing. One was like a “weak Pinot Noir.”

• One of the ciders: “Tasteless apple juice”

• The only one we did like was the rosé cider, which was actually quite good - we thought it would go great with music on a Saturday afternoon.

• The whites were better overall than the reds, but still not good. The one we found the most drinkable was a semi-dry blend of Cayuga, Gewurtztraminer and Chardonnay grapes, available at a reasonable $18. But for us, not worth a purchase. It was a bummer.

Here are more photos from the visit:

It’s still bothering me that one of the glasses isn’t lined up right!

Snow Farm Vineyard and Distillery: 👍

Ambience: 🏰 🌅 ⛲️ (it was too cold for the outside patio the day we were there, but it looked fun)

Presentation: ⚠️

Again, great location and grounds. The vineyard and tasting room were on South Hero Island, one of the larger Lake Champlain Islands - we had amazing views from the tasting room and also from the top of the hill behind the tasting room (they encourage people to “hike” up - it’s not very far). The staff were very friendly and knowledgeable, but it was still not the level of engagement we are used to in California (maybe we are just spoiled). On the other hand, we liked several of the wines, and they also served up some very interesting spirits. Consistent with the other winery, we enjoyed the whites more than the reds - but this time, we liked them enough to by two bottles! The wines overall were much more to our taste

One of the things we noticed, and liked a lot, was that the wine descriptions in the menu/tasting overview included food pairings, which all sounded pretty good to both of us. We sometimes find those kinds of pairing recommendations odd or not to our taste.

In case you are curious, the spirits in the photo are: Grappa, Maple Liqueur (made with maple syrup from their trees!), and Raspberry Liqueur (made with local raspberries). The maple was my favorite, the raspberry tasted a little too much like medicine from my youth. The grappa was grappa 😁.

More photos!