This year will be the third vintage of one the Similkameen’s ultimate summer wines – Eau Vivre’s Cinq Blanc. The Cinq Blanc is always a blend of five different white wines and for this year winemaker Anthony Buchanan has tweaked the blend to make it even more refreshing. This year’s Cinq Blanc is 50% Pinot Gris, 23% Viognier, 21% Sauvignon Blanc, 4% Riesling, and 3% Gewürztraminer making it more focused and a little less floral overall than last year’s vintage. The result is a wine with beautiful aromas of green apples and fresh herbs, a full flavour, and a long crisp finish that will last until the crickets start chirping.
16% of the 2014 Viognier was fermented with the skins in stainless steel tanks – just like a red wine – to give it a bigger body and deeper, fuller aromatics. An early sample of this wine yielded exquisite aromas of peaches, apricots, and flowers. Made with 100% Similkameen fruit, only 200 cases of this wine were produced.
Two intensely aromatic wines are also in the lineup again this year; the 2014 Gewürztraminer and the 2014 Riesling round out the whites at Eau Vivre this summer.
2014 Gewürztraminer
Made with estate-grown grapes only, this wine received a little skin contact like the Viognier did but only for a few hours. Huge aromas of lychee nuts and rose petals dominate an early sample of this wine and is off-dry.
2014 Riesling
100% Similkameen fruit and is a little sweeter at 21 g/L of residual sugar. This wine will be bold enough to handle almost anything spicy.
~ Luke Whittall