Vidal Blanc is a white hybrid grape pairing the Seibel grape (itself a hybrid of French and American grapes species) and the Italian grape Trebbiano (also known in France as ugni blanc).
It is known for its winter hardiness and ability to hang on the vine long in to the season to produce late harvest and ice wine.
Vidal blanc grapes are purchased from Bellview Winery in Landisville, NJ.
We make a semi-dry table wine with residual sugar of approximately 1% – very similar to a semi-dry Riesling.
We cold ferment at 55 degrees and age in SS tanks.
The slight effervescence or Frizzante is caused naturally by capturing carbon dioxide inside the wine when fermentation is almost done. The temperature of the wine is dropped to 32 degrees. This technique stops the fermentation (it gets too cold for the yeast), retains some residual sugar, and traps the carbon dioxide formed during fermentation in the wine. It is then bottled cold. This technique produces a slight effervescence (bubble) in the bottled wine.
Drink Sole with foods that have some heat/spice or where savory is mixed with sweet (duck or Chinese pork dishes). Sole should be served chilled to 55-60 degrees. It has about 12-12.5% alcohol.
The name of the wine “Sóle” means SUN in Italian and is pronounced SO-le.
