Silver ~ 2021 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
Tasting Notes
We source our Verdelho from Contra Costa County, California. Our Verdelho is from the 2019 harvest. The wine has floral notes of chamomile and spring blossoms. The color is a light golden and the flavors vary including hints of pineapple and citrus. Enjoy now or cellar for later. As Verdelho ages its flavor become deeper and richer. We are excited to offer this very particular white grape variety and hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Specs
Vintage: 2019
Varietal: Verdelho
Appellation: Contra Costa County
Alcohol: 12.9%
Production: 100 cases
What’s Included
4-bottles:
4x 2019 Denier-Handal Verdelho, Contra Costa County
Case:
12x 2019 Denier-Handal Verdelho, Contra Costa County
An award-winning, family-run winery in the heart of Dry Creek Valley
Our fascination with wine-grape growing began in South America, where we lived in Ecuador for 38 years, and continues today with our grape growing and wine making ventures in Sonoma County.
Our winemaking is a relatively recent venture. For over twenty years we were primarily grape growers selling our premium grapes to some of the best wineries in Sonoma and Napa counties with whom we have long standing relationships. One of our client-wineries was Wellington Vineyards in Glen Ellen owned by the Wellington family of Sonoma. Peter Wellington, owner-winemaker, produced several award-winning, vineyard specific Cabernet Sauvignons, including one from our Dry Creek Vineyard. Peter Wellington helped us develop and make our wines. We grew and produced boutique lots of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Sagrantino, a Red Blend and Cabernet Sauvignon at the Wellington facility in Glen Ellen. We now produce our wines at the Meeker custom crush facility in Healdsburg and continue to receive consulting support from Peter Wellington as well as David Noyes who also worked with Wellington.
Though we no longer farm our own grapes we continue to consult for the family that purchased our vineyard in Dry Creek Valley from which we continue to make our Cabernet Sauvignon and Sagrantino wines. We also maintain close contact with our farming colleagues in Sonoma County and Mendocino County where we source our other grapes. We are fortunate to work with our friend Larry Venturi at Venturi Family Vineyards in Mendocino. Larry grows our Sangiovese and Petite Sirah.
We continue to source excellent grapes from small family owned vineyards that follow our high standards in growing grapes using organic practices and supporting sustainability. These farming relationships ensure that our grapes will continue to produce award winning wines.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, TX, VA, WA, WI
@klezman It’s now owned by Juice Beauty Company. We still buy the Cabernet and Sagrantino from that vineyard. Except for last year because of the fires.
I’m always happy when a casemates Lab Rat bottles arrives and excited when I opened the box on Wednesday evening to find a 2019 Denier-Handal Verdelho.
I am not familiar with Denier-Handal, in my first two rats I had a look online at the winery, this time I decided not to. I am a little familiar with Verdelho and am a fan of this dry and citrusy grape most notably from Portugal.
It’s less yellow more pale in color that in my photo, probably due to my poor photography skills Fresh grapefruit hits me first in the nose, a second whiff produces some lemon lime and peach. Very pleasant!
On the palate a smooth mouth feel, very peachy at first but not too sweet, the medium to short finish is mineral citrus. This is a nice summer quaffer for parties and BBQ’s. My guess on wine store price is somewhere in the $12 to $14 range. I’m sure our Casemates friends will make this an offer hard to pass up!
@gkrivin Thank you for this review and picture. We love that this wine has so many different flavors. Last week I took a bottle to dinner and we had it with fried squash blossoms and a grilled peach salad. Delicious!
Yo what up case-mate’s peeps. Got this bad boy in the mail and I was like aw sweet wine and then I saw it was white wine and I was like oh dang … wine. I’m not a huge fan of white wine I often find it too sweet or bright and tangily acidic.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that that is not the case here. On first sip I was like oh shoot I have coronavirus because I don’t taste anything it just tastes cold. So I let it come up to like 61° and tried it again and I was like okay damn I know what this tastes like if you taste like a memory from when I was like eight but I couldn’t figure it out. So I did some noodling and I decided that this smells and has an initial taste of like those Jasmine honeysuckle tiny white flowers mixed with like a really really faint hint of lemon from those lollipops you get for free at a restaurant in the 90s and 80s where you can hardly tell if it is lemon or cantaloupe but it is definitely yellow.
Tastes kind of like lychee or peach or super mellow lemon balm. With a dusting of floral. And when I say the flavors light it’s like lacroix light. Like maybe someone cut a lemon next to the wine that’s how light the flavors are. I actually enjoyed how melo the flavors were I would consider this to be summer water or a great wine by the pool or maybe a wine you drink after you mow the grass or play some lawn games.
Once I let it warm up and did some like breathe in and breathe out flavor tests and such and let it kind of hang and get a little warmer you know then I started tasting more like those sour Altoids that used to make before the world started sucking and they stop producing those… If you remember those at all this kind of tastes like the pineapple or mandarin-ish version of those on the swallow.
Overall for the price offered I would for sure get this I would keep some bottles in the fridge and I would drink it when it’s extremely hot outside. I can totally see this being a crowd pleaser for your friends who like wine and your friends who don’t. This is completely outside of the scope of what I normally drink but I would not be upset having this if offered to me.
Yes, I measured the temp with my meat smoker knock off therma pen. To expand further this is not sweet and not really dry kind of neutral with a slight ever so slight sour acidity. Very smooth mouth feel surprisingly once I let it warm up I did catch a bit of alcohol heat on the breath which I did not expect given the percentage. I guess I would describe drinking this as like fresh or refreshing.
@connorbush If there is an end-of-the-year awards poll for best reviews, this would be up there, in some category, for sure.
Yeah, certain white varietals like this, Albarino, and Gewurztraminer often are described as a bit “sweet” even with very low Residual Sugar (RS). But when you actually take time to process what your senses are tell you, you realize “wait, that’s not sweet at all!” It’s the floral nature that tricks you, but I know some of our winemaker friends on the board could probably describe the specific component that does that.
Also, why wouldn’t this be a good wine to have while mowing the grass? You said you’d have it after. [disclaimer: always follow safety instructions while using powered lawn equipment. which I think includes “don’t drink and mow!”]
@pmarin I was being sneaky in case OSHA was listening in… Totally acceptable to drink whilst murdering blades of grass. It was tricking me because it was not sweet but not not sweet at first. Maybe neutral as it initially passed over my tongue… Later on, during exhale/inhale, it became a bit dry. Really interesting experience. I think the duality made me want to keep going back for sip after sip – Oh and the buzz helped too!
2019 Verdehlo, Contra Costa County, $21
Winemakers: Lucas Meeker
§ Harvest: September 2019
§ In the Cellar: Aged in stainless steel and neutral American and French Oak Barrels
§ Length of time in fermentor: 10 days
§ Bottled: September 2020. . 100 cases
§ Alcohol: 12.9%
§ pH: 3.3
§ Residual Sugar: Less than 0.1%
§ Varietals: 100% Verdehlo, Contra Costa County
Harvest notes:
Cultivated in the unique climate of the Sacramento River Delta. This area benefits from the refreshing ocean breezes
which come from the San Francisco Bay.
Tasting notes:
Beautiful color, bright aroma of spring flowers and citrus. On the palate it’s floral with hints of lemon/lime citrus.
The finish is clean and bright. Delicious on its own or paired with grilled fish, goat and sheep cheeses and light.
@davidd13 Yeah, my drivers are great, but the corporate UPS people trying to “upsell” any change to delivery is really annoying. Last week I had to pay $9.99x2 to delay delivery for a few days while I was away from the house.
FedEx used to redirect to a FedEx Office location (which is nicely air-conditioned by the way) for no charge, and they would keep it for a week at no charge. I am really missing that convenience, and sometimes avoid ordering if I’m planning to leave the house anytime in the next month.
@pmarin I agree with you regarding missing FedEx. I have passed up on several deals here I was really excited about due to the unreliability and difficulty (and additional cost) to reroute UPS shipments. FedEx would drop it at my Walgreen’s right up the street and they were super easy to deal with.
I understand the economics involved but I wonder how many sales have been lost due to the switch over.
@davidd13@pmarin I totally understand your pain. It used to be that UPS MyChoice provided better options, including having it held at the local UPS depot, which for me is plenty convenient enough, and easily managed on the computer. However, in recent months, they have steadily stripped away the convenience, wanting $5.99 to have it redirected to some auto parts store or whatever. I was able to get it held at the depot with a phone call or two, but I got tired of the hassle, and complained about it when I picked up a couple of shipments (making it clear that I wasn’t blaming the guys at the pickup desk, who have treated me really well for years). The head guy offered a suggestion, with a warning: they could have the local UPS dispatcher automatically hold ALL shipments addressed to our home, and call me to let me know they were ready for pickup. The downside: that means all shipments, not just the wine. We don’t buy that much that comes via UPS, and never anything that would be so time-sensitive that a day or two delay while it waited at the depot would be a problem. And at least once a week, I’m more or less in the neighborhood, so it’s not really much of an inconvenience to pick up the occasional item that would otherwise have been delivered directly to our home. Every now and then, I’ve made it a point to leave a bottle of bubbly for each of the guys, usually ordering Gruet for that specific purpose. Just a little thanks for the great service I’ve always gotten from them.
2019 Denier-Handal Verdelho, Contra Costa County
Silver ~ 2021 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
Tasting Notes
Specs
What’s Included
4-bottles:
Case:
Price Comparison
$272.79/Case at Handal-Denier Vineyards, LLC for 12x 2019 Denier-Handal Verdelho, Contra Costa County
About The Winery
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, TX, VA, WA, WI
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Aug 9 - Thursday, Aug 12
Denier~Handal Verdelho
4 bottles for $54.99 $13.75/bottle + $2/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $129.99 $10.83/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
2019 Denier~Handal Verdelho
You sold the vineyard? Does it have a new name?
@klezman It’s now owned by Juice Beauty Company. We still buy the Cabernet and Sagrantino from that vineyard. Except for last year because of the fires.
@Doralice4Sangio @klezman These guys?
https://juicebeauty.com/pages/farm-to-beauty
@Doralice4Sangio @klezman apparently so…
https://juicebeauty.com/blogs/posts/meet-dick-lisa-the-original-juice-beauty-vineyard-farmers
I’m always happy when a casemates Lab Rat bottles arrives and excited when I opened the box on Wednesday evening to find a 2019 Denier-Handal Verdelho.
I am not familiar with Denier-Handal, in my first two rats I had a look online at the winery, this time I decided not to. I am a little familiar with Verdelho and am a fan of this dry and citrusy grape most notably from Portugal.
It’s less yellow more pale in color that in my photo, probably due to my poor photography skills
Fresh grapefruit hits me first in the nose, a second whiff produces some lemon lime and peach. Very pleasant!
On the palate a smooth mouth feel, very peachy at first but not too sweet, the medium to short finish is mineral citrus. This is a nice summer quaffer for parties and BBQ’s. My guess on wine store price is somewhere in the $12 to $14 range. I’m sure our Casemates friends will make this an offer hard to pass up!
@gkrivin thank you for the report
@gkrivin Thank you for this review and picture. We love that this wine has so many different flavors. Last week I took a bottle to dinner and we had it with fried squash blossoms and a grilled peach salad. Delicious!
Stream of consciousness here we go:
Yo what up case-mate’s peeps. Got this bad boy in the mail and I was like aw sweet wine and then I saw it was white wine and I was like oh dang … wine. I’m not a huge fan of white wine I often find it too sweet or bright and tangily acidic.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that that is not the case here. On first sip I was like oh shoot I have coronavirus because I don’t taste anything it just tastes cold. So I let it come up to like 61° and tried it again and I was like okay damn I know what this tastes like if you taste like a memory from when I was like eight but I couldn’t figure it out. So I did some noodling and I decided that this smells and has an initial taste of like those Jasmine honeysuckle tiny white flowers mixed with like a really really faint hint of lemon from those lollipops you get for free at a restaurant in the 90s and 80s where you can hardly tell if it is lemon or cantaloupe but it is definitely yellow.
Tastes kind of like lychee or peach or super mellow lemon balm. With a dusting of floral. And when I say the flavors light it’s like lacroix light. Like maybe someone cut a lemon next to the wine that’s how light the flavors are. I actually enjoyed how melo the flavors were I would consider this to be summer water or a great wine by the pool or maybe a wine you drink after you mow the grass or play some lawn games.
Once I let it warm up and did some like breathe in and breathe out flavor tests and such and let it kind of hang and get a little warmer you know then I started tasting more like those sour Altoids that used to make before the world started sucking and they stop producing those… If you remember those at all this kind of tastes like the pineapple or mandarin-ish version of those on the swallow.
Overall for the price offered I would for sure get this I would keep some bottles in the fridge and I would drink it when it’s extremely hot outside. I can totally see this being a crowd pleaser for your friends who like wine and your friends who don’t. This is completely outside of the scope of what I normally drink but I would not be upset having this if offered to me.
Yes, I measured the temp with my meat smoker knock off therma pen. To expand further this is not sweet and not really dry kind of neutral with a slight ever so slight sour acidity. Very smooth mouth feel surprisingly once I let it warm up I did catch a bit of alcohol heat on the breath which I did not expect given the percentage. I guess I would describe drinking this as like fresh or refreshing.
@connorbush This might be the greatest Ratting I’ve ever read. Thank you.
/giphy blushing
@connorbush Thanks for the fun review. Now you got me thinking about candy so early in the morning.
@connorbush This is a great post! Thanks!
@connorbush If there is an end-of-the-year awards poll for best reviews, this would be up there, in some category, for sure.
Yeah, certain white varietals like this, Albarino, and Gewurztraminer often are described as a bit “sweet” even with very low Residual Sugar (RS). But when you actually take time to process what your senses are tell you, you realize “wait, that’s not sweet at all!” It’s the floral nature that tricks you, but I know some of our winemaker friends on the board could probably describe the specific component that does that.
Also, why wouldn’t this be a good wine to have while mowing the grass? You said you’d have it after. [disclaimer: always follow safety instructions while using powered lawn equipment. which I think includes “don’t drink and mow!”]
@pmarin
I was being sneaky in case OSHA was listening in… Totally acceptable to drink whilst murdering blades of grass. It was tricking me because it was not sweet but not not sweet at first. Maybe neutral as it initially passed over my tongue… Later on, during exhale/inhale, it became a bit dry. Really interesting experience. I think the duality made me want to keep going back for sip after sip – Oh and the buzz helped too!
A couple more specs:
2019 Verdehlo, Contra Costa County, $21
Winemakers: Lucas Meeker
§ Harvest: September 2019
§ In the Cellar: Aged in stainless steel and neutral American and French Oak Barrels
§ Length of time in fermentor: 10 days
§ Bottled: September 2020. . 100 cases
§ Alcohol: 12.9%
§ pH: 3.3
§ Residual Sugar: Less than 0.1%
§ Varietals: 100% Verdehlo, Contra Costa County
Harvest notes:
Cultivated in the unique climate of the Sacramento River Delta. This area benefits from the refreshing ocean breezes
which come from the San Francisco Bay.
Tasting notes:
Beautiful color, bright aroma of spring flowers and citrus. On the palate it’s floral with hints of lemon/lime citrus.
The finish is clean and bright. Delicious on its own or paired with grilled fish, goat and sheep cheeses and light.
https://localstastingroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2019-Denier-Handal-Verdelho-Contra-Costa-County.pdf
Off topic; this was posted on facebook today by our local beach community page. Thought you would all be able to relate!
@davidd13 Yeah, my drivers are great, but the corporate UPS people trying to “upsell” any change to delivery is really annoying. Last week I had to pay $9.99x2 to delay delivery for a few days while I was away from the house.
FedEx used to redirect to a FedEx Office location (which is nicely air-conditioned by the way) for no charge, and they would keep it for a week at no charge. I am really missing that convenience, and sometimes avoid ordering if I’m planning to leave the house anytime in the next month.
@pmarin I agree with you regarding missing FedEx. I have passed up on several deals here I was really excited about due to the unreliability and difficulty (and additional cost) to reroute UPS shipments. FedEx would drop it at my Walgreen’s right up the street and they were super easy to deal with.
I understand the economics involved but I wonder how many sales have been lost due to the switch over.
@davidd13 @pmarin I totally understand your pain. It used to be that UPS MyChoice provided better options, including having it held at the local UPS depot, which for me is plenty convenient enough, and easily managed on the computer. However, in recent months, they have steadily stripped away the convenience, wanting $5.99 to have it redirected to some auto parts store or whatever. I was able to get it held at the depot with a phone call or two, but I got tired of the hassle, and complained about it when I picked up a couple of shipments (making it clear that I wasn’t blaming the guys at the pickup desk, who have treated me really well for years). The head guy offered a suggestion, with a warning: they could have the local UPS dispatcher automatically hold ALL shipments addressed to our home, and call me to let me know they were ready for pickup. The downside: that means all shipments, not just the wine. We don’t buy that much that comes via UPS, and never anything that would be so time-sensitive that a day or two delay while it waited at the depot would be a problem. And at least once a week, I’m more or less in the neighborhood, so it’s not really much of an inconvenience to pick up the occasional item that would otherwise have been delivered directly to our home. Every now and then, I’ve made it a point to leave a bottle of bubbly for each of the guys, usually ordering Gruet for that specific purpose. Just a little thanks for the great service I’ve always gotten from them.
How long would you recommend to cellar this wine? Looking to purchase for use next year or so.
Sounds lovely, in for a case!
/giphy reverent-bad-beast
In for 4
/giphy mocking-murderous-rest
/giphy loosely-decisive-pot
Loved today’s rattage and vintner participation!
In for a case.
/giphy unanswered-fractured-rhinoceros
/giphy wireless-tinted-grog
