Ohio producer excelling with a pair of wines that couldn’t be more different

Vermilion Valley Vineyards was one of the wineries represented at an East Coast winemakers summit in late June at Boordy Vineyards in Maryland.

Joe Juniper is the winemaker and also managing partner who holds other roles in the Ohio wine industry, including as president of the state’s Wine Producers Association.

The winery is located in Wakeman, Ohio, around 12 miles south of Vermilion, which sits along Lake Erie. It’s grapes grow in the Lake Erie AVA. The winery is located less than an hour’s drive from Cleveland and a two and a half hour’s drive from Pittsburgh.

You can read more on the winery at this link.

Juniper left behind some bottles to try and two in particular got my attention.

The Petit Roja is listed under red wines but drinks like a dark rose and is light, fruity and delicious.

Per the winemaker notes:

• Nose: raspberries, mango, lilacs, cranberries, underripe pineapple
• Palate: watermelon, tangerine, raspberries, low tannin, soft acids.

Juniper in an email said it was a carbonic macerated Pinot Noir.

“I do not ‘cluster thin’ in the typical fashion as I believe the extra crop load through the summer is usually needed to help tame vine vigor and maintain balance,” he said. “However, we do several passes of green dropping at or just post veraison. This allows us to keep the ripest, most advanced fruit.

“Absolute greens go on the ground but the fruit in the middle we usually make ‘fun wine’ with, usually a rosé or ‘White xxx,’ but last year we did our first full carbonic. Whole clusters into a Brite tank — a thick-walled tank used to carbonate wine, beer, cider, etc. with a pressure release valve. The Petit Rioja was wild-fermented and the tank never opened for two weeks. We then drained the tank and whole-cluster pressed. We did minimal fining and finished it with the same ML treatment as our Vino Verde, hence the tiny spritz.”

He said this summer has helped juice sales, with the “fair share of above-average temps and humidity” they have had in that part of Ohio.

It sells for $18.

Here is a link to the complete wine list.

His affordably-priced Cabernet Sauvignon ($36) was also very good. Per its winemaker notes:

• Nose: blueberry compote, tobacco smoke, black pepper, cuiry spice
  
• Palate: dried cherries, mesquite, twiggy, full-bodied, bitter dark chocolate

“Despite all of our goofy practices in both the vineyard and in the cellar for other varieties, we keep Cabernet Sauvignon pretty straightforward,” he wrote. “It’s very responsive in the field so we target 5.5 tons per acre and usually land around 4-4.5 by harvest. It goes into neutral barrels and sees no new oak aside from some adjuncts from time to time. That same wine goes into our private Tuesday Wine program and is sold retail DTC for $12 per bottle under that label.

“We hope to blow Tuesday Wine up over the next six months to be able to offer it to the public across the country.”