Like cran-dy: Elmaro Cranberry

Just as Sam Cooke didn't know much about history, biology, and other such studies, I don't know much about wine. But I do know that I like Rieslings.

Back in the summer when I stopped in at the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center & Cranberry Country Café up in Warrens, I perused the gift shop and came away with, amongst other things, a bottle of cranberry wine from Elmaro Vineyards in Trempealeau.

Unsurprisingly, I've never heard of Elmaro as my Wisconsin winery knowledge doesn't extend beyond a few down here in the southern part of the state: New Glarus Primrose Winery (which seems to be no more), Wollersheim, the one on River Road in Waunakee, and the joint that begins with a B that you see signs for near the Hollandale exit on Highway 18. My rather cursory search for Wisconsin winemakers leads me to believe that every winery in the state has a cranberry wine (even found a lingonberry vino) except Wollersheim, which seems to turn its nose up at any fruit that isn't a grape, when it comes to wine.

I have friends who have a solid rudimentary knowledge of wine. They can more or less define the major varieties, opine on which countries produce the best whatever, and tell you some prices at Vic Pierce Liquor at Sherman and Commercial.

My knowledge is much more primitive. There's reds and whites that are dry or sweet. If there's bubbles, it's sparkling. Done.

Elmaro's cranberry vino is pretty stuff - a lovely ruby color. It smelled, well, vinous. Like your typical wine where the grapes go solo. At first the scent was like that I associate with a dry wine but a sweetness eventually made its presence known.

This stuff was quite sweet, at first, and then the cranberry tartness burst its way through the syrupy stuff like the Kool-Aid Man through a wall to make a brief appearance. There was what I figured to be some tannin dryness underneath it all. I think the tannins along with a little alcohol burn came through on the finish to finally wash the sweetness away.

With all that sweetness, I found this wine to be something of a syrupy overload. I liked it in small doses. The tartness from the cranberries was very tasty and I think this wine would be more enticing to my tongue if that flavor were on more of an equal footing with the grape sweetness. A few drams for dessert is the way to go for me.