Mount Salem Vineyards Zweigelt 2015 and A Visit to the Mount Salem Vineyards Pittstown, New Jersey

Recommendation: “OK” New Jersey red; VERY NICE tasting experience.

Winery/Producer: Mount Salem Vineyards; Pittstown, New Jersey.

Grape Variety: Zweigelt.

Geographic Region, Appellation: Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

Vintage: 2015

Price: $28.00

Purchased From: The Mount Salem Vineyards; Pittstown, New Jersey.

Paired With: Roast beef, roasted vegetables and onion pie.

Tasting:

He said: Opened 30-minutes before drinking. Clear, dark ruby color with a lighter rim. Light fruit aromas…nothing objectionable and actually a pretty nice overall bouquet. Smooth, fairly light body, lots of acidity and quite persistent dry fruit taste with a STRONG underlying sour cherry flavor. All this continues through a medium length finish. It needs to be said right up front that small local vineyard produced wines are notoriously poor, expensive and unfortunately they start out with two strikes on my first taste. This one turned out to be OK…and that says a lot!!! This wine has many things going for it…it’s very drinkable, not sweet and if it weren’t for the sour cherry in the taste I’d probably be raving over it. As expected, it was very different from Zweigelt we’ve had from Austria and Germany; however since it’s our first local Hunterdon County wine we’re reviewing I’ll say it’s “OK” New Jersey red.

Visit to the Mount Salem Vineyards




John, our tasting guide

On a recent trip to our farm in Norton, New Jersey we visited the Mount Salem Vineyards that’s only a few miles away. Mount Salem Vineyards is a boutique winery in Pittstown, New Jersey and we stopped in for their Standard and Vintage 2015 tastings and picked this Zweigelt as the one we liked best. A special note should be made that we selected a red not a white as our choice for best… generally it’s harder to make good reds than good whites. It should also be noted that we had a delightful tasting with the “jack-of-all-tasks” cellar master, John. For a small vineyard there facility was both picturesque and charming. Would we go back? In a flash if we had a chance.

She said: Opaque, dark ruby red color. Many rapidly moving legs. A sour cherry aroma and flavor are accompanied by a funkiness that persist into the first half of the long finish. The mouth feel was dry, medium bodied and smooth. I didn’t care for the funky aroma and taste and don’t remember it being so prevalent at the tasting. I wouldn’t buy this Zweigelt again.

Visit to the Mount Salem Vineyards




Mount Salem Vineyards tasting room

A cheerful sign greets you at the entrance and a charming old house waits for wine tasting. Inside of the house is even more charming with wooden beams on the ceiling and a long country style table for tasting. Hope that you’re tasting guide is John, the Mount Salem cellar master, because he is gracious, friendly and very knowledgeable. There are two wine tasting’s available, which is fine because you can share and compare the wines from both. A delightful experience and well worth the effort of getting there. I would recommend a visit to Mount Salem vineyards.

Mount Salem vineyard master Agnieszka harvesting grapes

Alcohol: 12.5%

UPC Code: NA

Imported by: NA

Photo from Mount Salem Vineyards.