INDY INTERNATIONAL WINE COMPETITION’S 2014 INDIANA FARM WINERY OF THE YEAR — TURTLE RUN WINERY!


Typing this while with a glass of Painted Red, all the while savoring a big award, — INDIANA WINERY OF THE YEAR — by the INDY INTERNATIONAL WINE COMPETITION!  Whoa!!!!!

Just created this year — an award for wineries in Indiana that produce less than 50,000 gallons, which is a vast majority of us.

While we are all jazzed up over this award, you won’t see much fanfare on the wines that brought this award home.  We preach at Turtle Run to like the wines you like, at the temperature you like, with the food that you like, in the glass shape you like.  Due to individual’s taste bud count and past flavor experiences, what anyone likes is completely individualized.  Before I truly understood this concept, many years ago, I listed our medals on our tasting sheet and poured one of those big, bold dry gold medal winning reds to a super sensitive taste bud gal who loved sweet, and whoa!!  Oops!!!  No more medals listed on our tasting sheet.

However, since I’m “Pimpin’ the Turtle”, I’ll mention the wine that “did it” — Estate Bottled Chambourcin 2012.  I thought our 2012 was one of our best 4 vintages we have grown: 2000, 2007 and 2010 are the others in the big 4.  To me, this wine is just flat out balanced!  Nice densely balanced fruit.  Nicely balanced tannins, nicely balanced oak, nicely balanced finish.  I just like it..a lot!  Always have. And it grabbed a Concordance Double Gold — the equivalency of the US Supreme Court reaching a unanimous decision.  Apparently a ton of points goes to one of these gems and we got em!  So if you like dry reds, give our 2012 Chambourcin a try.

As an aside, as president of the Indiana Uplands Wine Trail, the combined haul of medals from the trail was 93 — over 40% of the total medals taken by Indiana wineries!  And we represent 11% of the total amount of wineries!  So hop on the Indiana Uplands Wine Trail for some amazing, amazing wines!!

Ahh…but back to the Painted Red.  First made in 2004, Painted Red is our full to medium bodied dry red with great, medium tannins and full fruit.   Our 2013 is a blend of cab franc, cab sauvignon, corot noir, noiret, some zinfandel and pinot noir.  I am trying this dry red slightly chilled.  It’s delicious!  Intense…but not (I know, that’s weird).  So fruity.  Just a hint of oak.  Just dandy!  I love that finish.  It’s 20 seconds since my last sip and I am still tasting a lingering set of flavors.  That’s right up my alley.

Also included in this email is information about Tour De Pork, the bicycle tour that starts and ends here on Saturday.  And the Ron Jones Jazz Quartet will be here to serenade the riders when they return!  If you don’t ride, come out anyway for some great music.  And, there’s something special about the music from Ron this time.

We list our Fall Concert Series too in this email  And, of course, new wines!  And our upcoming grape harvest!!!

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