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JOLO Vineyards Golden Hallows Yadkin Valley 2016

On April 5, 2014, we attended the grand opening of Jolo Vineyards.  It was a beautiful spring North Carolina day and we thoroughly enjoyed the festivities of wine tasting, food samples and music.  The archives of this blog include my review with several pictures.  Sadly, we have not been to Jolo since 2014 because it's location is not in close proximity to the other Yadkin Valley wineries we have visited.  We hope to remedy that problem this year.

Jolo Vineyards is in Pilot Mountain, North Carolina.  For those readers not familiar with this part of North Carolina, Pilot Mountain is located between Winston Salem and Mount Airy, the hometown of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for Mayberry.  A fictitious city in the Andy Griffith show was named Mount Pilot.  I am sure that the younger readers of this blog have only a vague idea what I am referring to.

Golden Hallows 2016 is a blend of 55% Vidal Blanc and 45% Traminette.  Vidal Blanc is a winter hardy grape developed in the 1930's.  It develops high sugar in cold climates and is often used in ice wines in Canada.  It is also grown in the Finger Lakes and North Carolina.  Traminette is an cold hardy offspring of Gewurztraminer.  It is often grown in Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina.

My initial taste of the wine had fruity flavors of pineapple and honey and the finish brought in some grapefruit and other citrus.  This was like a glass of summer sunshine on the a cold, cloudy winter day.  We enjoyed this with crab cakes and it would work well with any shell fish or mild seafood.

Jolo is selling the 2018 version of Golden Hallows on their website for $26.  I found this 2016 version for $14.99 at Wine Xpress in Simpsonville, SC.  If you are anywhere nearby, this is an excuse for a field trip.

SC Wine Joe does not assign a numerical rating to white wines.




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