This week marks a very special out-of-the-box wine for me. A very good, wine loving, runner, amazing lady on the regular, friend of mine visited Hawaii last year. Amidst all of her hiking and adventures, she was able to try some pineapple wine and she enjoyed it so much that she brought a bottle of it home. I was very honored that she chose to share it with me. This is truly what wine is about. It’s about sharing something that you love and enjoy with others.
I had never had a wine made from pineapples before, but it sounded rather intriguing. MauiWine was founded in 1974 and originally named Tedeschi Vineyards. It started as just your regular run of the mill winery. Vines of grapes were planted on what used to be a ranch. An old dairy constructed of lava rock was repurposed for the wine lab and bottling room. In 1975, the owners decided to test out a sparkling pineapple wine. In 1977 the first bottle of Maui Blanc was released to the masses. It was so well received that the winery hired a world-class winemaker as a consultant to perfect their pineapple winemaking process. *
MauiWine also has several estate wines under its label that encompass more normal varietals such as, Syrah, Malbec, Rosé, and Viognier. Their blended wines live under their Rose Ranch Wines sub-label.* It’s hard to believe that all of these grapes grow happily in Hawaii, but I can’t seem to imagine anything growing unhappily there.
This wine was from Kula, Hawaii and sampled on June 10, 2019. The bright gold that shone from the bottle really makes you feel as if you’re about to enjoy something really special and rare. The scent is overpoweringly pineapple as expected. You can almost smell how juicy it will taste. Of course, the taste is full on pineapple! It makes you feel like you’re sitting on the beach under a giant umbrella with a straw stuck straight into a pineapple. I could almost hear the waves and smell the salt water. Towards the back of my tongue, there is just a hint of the bitterness of pineapple rind. It had very low tannins and was also low in acidity with a fairly low alcohol content.
I gave this wine a rating of 4.0. If you don’t like pineapple, I would say this is definitely not for you. But, if you’re craving something different or maybe just missing the beach, then you should definitely give this a try.
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