The Lake Chelan AVA encompasses the southernmost and easternmost areas of the famed vacation destination lake and the majority of its surrounding land. In other words, the AVA begins at the town of Chelan and continues up-lake for 12 miles. What isn’t included is nearby Orondo, a Columbia River-front location for vineyards that is slotted to the general Columbia Valley AVA designation. With support from wineries like Rocky Pond, who hosts vines in both Lake Chelan AVA and Orondo for its two estate vineyards, campaigns for a new designation are underway. Rocky Pond hopes to be pulling red wines exclusively from its Orondo estate vineyard by the 2015 harvest, and in the mean time, they use only estate fruit for their white wines from their Lake Chelan AVA Clos CheValle Vineyard on the southern shores of the lake.
Boasting Ron Bunnell as consulting winemaker, Rocky Pond launched with 900 cases from the 2013 vintage. From the inaugural release, Riesling (both late harvest and off-dry) was the star. The 2013 Clos CheValle Riesling is blended with 14 percent Chardonnay for an expressive bouquet—green apple, passion fruit, quince, lime slices and green melon with sweet spice and slate. The palate rushes round and wide with off-dry flavors of mineral, green apple and citrus zest for a bright and tart, medium-bodied wine that lingers with apple and salivating, structural acid.
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