RSVP Tasting: The Gray Monk comes to call

Wine Gray Monk Pinot Blanc 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $16.49 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 12.9%
Grapefruit bashes you on the nose, but it’s otherwise balanced and easygoing on the palate, to the point where it would be overpowered by too-assertive food. (Although as a note on just how subjective such things can be, our eminence griese pronounced it heavy, rich, and that it had great viscosity besides.) Its maker claims versatility for it, and the above clash of (universally positive) opinions may just bear him out.

Wine Gray Monk Riesling 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $15.49
Alcohol Content 12.2%
Light Riesling nose. After that, opinion was divided: ranging from “delicious” to “underwhelming”. Good residual sugar skates perilously close to cloying, although that may simply mark taster expectations of a more robust style. Its maker considers it ageworthy, and the naysayers were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Wine Gray Monk Siegerrebbe 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $16.49 (MSL)
Alcohol Content 10.9%
1300 cases were made of this too-little planted variety. Or, too-little planted considering the results here: What its maker describes as “a light desert wine” is far more flexible than that, responding nicely to oysters with a fresh, almost Muscat-like nose and a balanced, refreshing palate. In the June 4th RSVP tasting we complained that if only Cedar Creek could have held the alcohol down, their 2006 Riesling would be “a willowy blonde”. This is that willowy blonde.

Wine Gray Monk Ehrenfelser
From Okanagan, BC
Price $15.49
Alcohol Content 12.2%
White chocolate nose! Very pleasant, late-harvest style---in fact, the winemaker confessed to the group that Gray Monk had removed the late-harvest designation from the label and dried the wine out a bit this year. Nevertheless, still potent, balanced, and makes a great case for a grape that often makes big, goofy wines. Lovely finish as well---bring on the Thai curry.

Wine Gray Monk Late Harvest Kerner 2006
From Okanagan, BC
Price $16.49
Alcohol Content 13.3%
Fresh nose; sweet on the palate with a hint of residual CO2. Fresh, but after the Ehrenfelser, uncompelling.

Wine Gray Monk Odyssey Merlot Dry Creek Vineyard 2003
From Okanagan, BC
Price $23.99
Alcohol Content 13.4%
Sweet---almost feminine?---nose (“beautiful aromatics” was the way the lead taster put it), with a little toast from one year-old French oak. Tannins still a little stiff on the palate, but will soften with a couple of more years in the bottle. Firm and meaty, this could use food to round out the experience; as is often the case, the tannins went really well with (wait for it) chocolate. Tasty stuff---pretty much exactly the flavor profile you would expect of a red made by people whose soul is really in their whites.