$29.99, CASE PRICE $324/$27 per bottle

Looking for the perfect wine to open in the backyard this summer?  We may have found it!  While all of the St. Innocent Pinot Noirs were excellent (the Shea, OMG!), the surprise star of our recent tasting with Makenzie Vlossak, (daughter of winery founder and pioneer Mark) was this zingy Pinot Blanc!  Mark has always believed this hard-to-do-well grape would thrive on Freedom Hill, even at the expense of the far more popular and much easier to produce Pinot Gris, and this bottling is proving him prescient indeed!  Pinot Blanc can sometimes lack acidity and drive, making it a sort of Chardonnay wannabe, but without the character.  But that is definitely not the case here!  The 2023 is electric with natural acidity and persistent, lifted aromatics that range from the Asian pear all the way to pineapple, but without any softness or ‘tropical’ feel.  I hate describing a wine by what it’s not, so let me tell what it is: A lively, really fun-to-drink white with the palate presence of a Meursault and the acidity and zip factor of a Sancerre!  Grilled poultry or fish on the menu?  Seafood?  Even oysters?  This is your wine.  But there’s plenty enough chutzpah to stand up to far richer dishes too.  Grilled pork chops?  Game hen with lemon and tarragon?  Ah, hell, or nothing at all.  I can see myself drinking about all of a bottle without a morsel of food in sight!  It’s a fine value and a marvelous discovery too.  Good drinking. (And don’t let the Hoch-shaped bottle fool you- this is bone dry!)