Review: 2008 Stony Hill Reisling Napa Valley

A child only a mother could love.

Rating:  Wine meets Akron in a catastrophic collision.  Barely fun as an experiment. $21



The rest of the story: (Note: This wine was tasted and reviewed blind during the course of a seminar at the Culinary Institute of America.)

If Champagne had no bubbles, it might be this color.  Slightly disturbing, this wine smells more like chemistry and industry than fruit or earth.  Consistent with the nose, whatever fruit once existed at the core of the wine is long gone.  Flat, uninspiring, and lacking coherence.  A child only a mother could love.  Sugars, acids, and minerals - all present - are indistinct.

Possibly infected with brettanomyces, this wine was offensive to the nose and palatte.  If so, it's a shame.  You can almost see what it could've been.