Fume What? Dry Creek Vineyards Sonoma Fume Blanc 2023

Dry Creek Vineyards Sonoma Fume Blanc 2023

Fume Blanc goes back to the 60s and early 70s when folks didn't want sweet Sauvignon Blanc.

Robert Mondavi did a name change, and the rest is history.

Please check out the podcast to understand why it is called Fume Blanc and why "meaning no longer explains anything" doesn't work.

Sauvignon Blanc has replaced Fume Blanc, but it is still fun!

Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.com

or email us at podcast@cheapwinefinder.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey, welcome. It's Domain Dave, cheaperwinefiner.com again, like always and always and always. Got another Value Price um wine podcast. We write the review on the cheaperwinefinder.com website and we fill in the blanks or whatever. The website's got uh links and pictures and can kind of fill things out a little bit. Here I'm just gonna talk about stuff that interests me. And today we've got the Dry Creek Vineyard Sonoma Fume Blanc 2023. It's a um wine I found for 12 bucks. Um first thing is what the heck is Fume Blanc? And it's it's a bit of an explanation, so bear with me here. Like 60s, 70s back then, and this wine, the first vintage uh for Dry Creek uh Dry Creek Vineyards, it's like 73. This wine's been around forever. In the 60s and 70s, um early ones, Sauvignon Blanc used to be a sweet wine, and the kind your aunt would drink. Um not a not uh you know, real wine drinkers wouldn't want it. It was, you know, it was more sorority girl wine. So sorry, sorority girls. And Robert Mondavi, the who's the godfather of California wine, had a vineyard of Sabillon Blanc that was good grapes, and he wanted to make a really good dry Sabillon Blanc, something that would rival France, and he put it out there, and nobody wanted Sabillon Blanc because it was a sweet wine that you didn't drink. So we what you know, what am I gonna do with it? So he called it Fumet Blanc. Fumet Blanc is, I think Blanc Fumet is uh old, old name for Sabillon Blanc from France, and it started to sell. I mean, in the rest is history because now it's one of the top wines. Now it goes a little further. This fumet Blanc suggests that there's oak barrels involved. Now it doesn't actually mean that, but it suggests that in France Bordeaux Blanc, which is uh Sauvignon Blanc with Semillon, a little bit of Semillon, is one of the ones that is the longest aging wine. You can get uh Four Bordeaux Blanc wines that you put away for 25 years or more, and they're just wonderful wines, super expensive. And then on the flip side, there's the Laura Valley um Savillon Blanc, which are these really bright, expressive sunshine and a bottle type of wines. So Fume Blanc suggests Bordeaux rather than Laura Valley, but the Dry Creek Vineyard Sonoma Fume Blanc 2023 is more modern modeled after the um Laura Valley wines. So I'm gonna take a sip. So, you know, in other words, it just means a Sauvignon Blanc. I mean, because it doesn't really, really mean it's got oak, and usually on the value-priced wines, they're not going to have oak. Um, Sauvignon Blanc is kind of for winemakers, one of the easiest wines. As long as you got a good vineyard, you you you you you you do what you do to ferment it, you use the yeast that bring out the right flavors, and when it's done, you age it just for a short period of time for it all to blend together and you sell it. You don't need to complicate things. So oak complicates things. So you you get that maybe in more expensive wines, but uh value price wines we get stainless steel. So I'm gonna take my sip. So that's the explanation of why it's fume blanc and not Sauvignon Blanc, and they've been they've been doing Fume Blanc since Mandavi came up with it way back when. Dry Creek Vineyards is like one of the first um modern vineyards in um in in Dry Creek. And Dry Creek is north of Heelsburg, it's kind of um what's it east of it? It's um it's east of Sonoma Coast and it's west of Alexander Valley. So it's a little bit north, it's a little bit warmer. Um, it's part of the Russian River tributaries. So, you know, it's kind of up there, and it's kind of a really great place. And I heard that the Dry Creek Vineyards, if you look into Sonoma and want to check out vineyards, this is one of the ones to check out. Uh it's supposed to have a great tasting room and a long history, and it's uh family-owned, I think second generation's still there, you know, making good wine. Another thing I want to uh want to mention is the label. I've always complained that wineries don't ever tell you anything about the wine. This label tells you everything. The front label, you read it and you find out that it's uh uh 100%, you know, whatever, uh, and then they even that they um use the state grapes plus local vineyards, and this they've been around so long, they hey, you got any grapes? Yeah, and so their friends are giving them grapes that it's vegan friendly, that it's sustainably grown, all that's on the front label, and rather nicely shown. So as a taste, because I'm just talking glowingly about the peripherals, it tastes good. It's not gonna be if you're into New Zealand, it's not that. It's not, it doesn't have the big nose, it doesn't have the big flavor, though New Zealand has balanced out of late. It's a quality sip. Let me say that. It's got delicious flavors, it's balanced, it's got bright acidity. It is a wine that you would maybe like use for spicy uh Asian food or a really nice salad, you know. Um you know, the with the strawberry vinaigrette and all that type of thing. It would go well with that. This is not just a sipping wine, though it is a sipping wine, and it at twelve dollars it's uh it's anywhere, it's it's any day of the week wine. It could be fancy Saturday night with friends, or it could be Tuesday with Netflix. Yeah, it's balanced, it's tasty. It's a good wine. So there we go. I just told you why it's Pume Blanc, Dry Creek Vineyards Sonoma, uh Fumet Blanc 2023. It rocks, it's a good tasting wine. If you see it, buy it. You'll like it. So Audio Speaker Cheap. I got more wines coming up. We'll be talking. Bye bye.