Is there such a thing as good Ohio wine? Mike and I went on a quest yesterday to visit some local Ohio wineries to find out if there is good Ohio wine.
We started off first at Harpersfield Winery. This is a well known winery that sells there wine in many local grocery stores. It’s a fun little place. All of there wine could be put into the decent, good or great category. Everything was drinkable, nothing was bad. We found a few jems. “L’essence”, a blend of Riesling and Gewurztraminer was very good, Chardonnay ‘Cuvee Sans Chene’, an unoaked Chardonnay was wonderfully crisp, and the REDS! wow, what a surprise! They were all great! The Pinot Noir was good, not a Carneros region Pinot but still very tasty. The Cabernet Franc and Chambourcin were also very good. We also tried some of the homemade bread with olive oil and cheese, very good. They have a very simple (and cheap) food menu, but it all looked great and smelled even better. Nothing fancy, just good home cooking. Can’t wait to go back and try more wine and food. After picking up a number of bottles we headed on off to Markko.
Markko Winery is located further east of Harpersfield and a number of other wineries. I had heard Markko is very good, but they really don’t sell wines any place other than the winery and they don’t have much of a marketing budget, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Driving to Markko is a trip. You get off the highway, head into this small little town, turn onto a paved road, keep driving after the road is no longer paved, turn at the stone pillars to head up to the winery. You start driving in the woods on a gravel road, park near a sign and walk toward a house that has no signage around it, there are several large dogs layng on the porch, you wonder if they are good dogs and you still think you might be shot at for tresspassing. Once you get past all that, we found the gem of the day. In a blind taste you would never guess these came from Ohio. Everything we tasted was amazing. Chardonnay, Rieslings (many rieslings), Cab, Pinot, oh my! It’s the quirkest place, but the most amazing wines! The Rieslings very much tasted like they were from Germany. The Pinot was wonderful! I could go on for hours. Here they only have a little cheese and crackers out, other people did bring there own food. One note on visiting Markko, call first to make sure they are open and bring a sense of adventure to get there.
Last stop was Ferrante Winery. We mainly went here for food and to taste the wine as a side adventure. This is a winery and ristorante. We sat down in the ristorante, ordered food and ordered 2 sample trays of wine (which gives you a sample of all the wine but ice wine). The food was very good, the Pepe Carciofo appetizer was very good and the pizza was good also. The wines were more of what I expected from Ohio wines. They had so many different types. Most were ok, nothing too special or too sweet. The oddest stand out was the Chardonnay - Lake Erie, cause it tasted like Lake Erie. The reds were decent. The most unique one of all was the Rosso, an Italian like wine with a hint of sweetness. The food went very well with the wine since the pizza sauce is a bit sweet. Go to Ferrante for the food and taste the wine on the side.
After that we headed back into the city. We’ll be doing another trip or two out to “Wine Country Ohio” to see a try more.
- Mood:
amused
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