It's always fun to visit Hood Crest Winery in the Columbia Gorge wine region of Oregon, and a delight to speak with Tess Bard, owner and winemaker.
Tess is a fantastic person who keeps challenging herself in new endeavors. After a successful career as a chemical scientist, she reinvented herself and opened a winery, and became a winemaker in a field dominated by men. Tess is also an accomplished Blues singer and now a spirit maker. We suspect her day has 48 hours because it's the only way she can succeed in all these things.
Ever wondered how much is commercial pot still costs? Watch the video (below) if you'd like to learn. On this visit, we tasted more than newly new released wines. We also sampled a few different kinds of spirits Tess makes.
Hood Crest New Wine Releases
We tasted 2017 Barbera, 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2017 Tempranillo, all made with Columbia Valley AVA fruit.
2017 Barbera made with grape variety native to Piemonte of Italy. If you're a fan of these wines, you might find the Hood Crest Barbera's funky plum, vanilla, and toast aroma a bit unusual compared to the classic Italian version. On the palate, it's closer with red cherry and sour red plum flavors.
2016 Cabernet Sauvignon is a fruit-forward version of Cab with vanilla and oak dominating blackberry and plum on the nose and the palate. It was the best-structured wine of the day with full-body and substantial tannin and balanced acidity.
2017 Tempranillo was our favorite among new releases. The dry black cherry, dark chocolate, and sweet vanilla tea on the nose continue with black plum, toast, and coffee beans on the palate.
You won't' mistake it for a classic Spanish Tempranillo. Still, its vanilla and dark fruit profile can conquer many palates.
Tasting Hood Crest Spirits
Hood Crest Winery and Distillery offers various exciting spirits, including vodka, few kinds of brandy, Grappa, whiskey, rum, and gin. We tasted Cherry Vodka, Grappa, and Cognac-style Brandy.
Cherry Vodka is non of those cherry or whatever-flavored vodkas you can buy in the store. It's actually based on cherry berries. Vodka purists can rejoice; it tastes and smells like pure vodka and has no artificial flavors.
Hood Crest Cherry Vodka is hardly one of those smooth big-label vodkas. It got a character on the palate, and we wonder what vodka connoisseurs would say after tasting it.
When we saw Cognac-style Brandy on the tasting flight, we expected an amber-colored drink. To our surprise, it was crystal-clear as vodka.
On the other hand, any brandy, including Cognac, starts the same way. Grape wine is distilled into a clear spirit called Brandy. Double distillation and a pot still used to make it - are what separates Cognac from other kinds of brandy. The resulting spirit has fewer impurities and is a smoother kind of brandy. The color comes from ageing in barrels.
So what we tasted in Hood Crest Cognac-style Brandy is pure double distilled spirited made in a pot still and before ageing.
Our favorite of all three we tasted was Hood Crest Grappa. Faithful to the original, it's made with grape pomace and has some typical earthy and hay-like aromas we come to expect from Grappa.
What made it a favorite is the white chocolate aftertaste. Yes, white chocolate. It was quite a surprise for us too.
We finish where we started. It's always fun to visit Hood Crest Winery and Distillery. It has all the necessary components that make wine swinging memorable: beautiful scenery, wines, spirits, pizza, and blues.
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