Marguerite Barrett
Contributing Writer

Newport Vineyards has an extensive menu of wines, 31 in total; one of the largest selections that I’ve seen yet from a Northeastern regional winery.   The menu begins with 13 whites divided into four categories: dry, no-oak (2), dry, oaked (1), Alsatian Style (6), and the semi-dry (4), before moving into the Rosés (4), the Reds (8), the Dessert Wines, which include a Port and an Ice Wine (4), and finishing with a Brut sparkling wine and a hard apple cider.

A tasting, which runs $9, includes your choice of five wines and allows you to join one of the two daily tours of the winery (1 and 3 pm).  Unfortunately, if you elect not to take the tour or arrive after the tours have finished for the day (as we did), the price still remains $9.  Tastings of the Ice Wine and the Brut will run you an additional $1 each.  Individual glasses of wine can be purchased for $6, although a handful of the premium wines run $8 per glass.

Christy and I took our time studying the menu and selecting our wines, while listening to our hosts explain ad nauseum to a group at the other end of the bar that tastings work best if you start with the whites and move on to the reds.  I’m always amused, and often exasperated, by the people who don’t know what they’re doing – but desperately and often pretentiously pretend that they do.   The winery staff had my sympathy that day; I can only imagine how frustrating it is to watch someone select a fuller-bodied wine like a cabernet franc as their first wine, follow it up with a light-bodied white, and then have to listen to them complain about how the “white tastes funny” – all the while keeping a polite smile on your face.

But eventually the group settled down, and our host wandered over to pour our tasting.  I elected to begin with the one dry, oak-aged white, the

2007 Newport Chardonnay A nice wine, but not one that blew me away.  The color is a very pale yellow, and the nose has light grassy notes with a very light touch of citrus.  A light-bodied wine, in the mouth the flavors are light, clean and smooth with light sweet notes of pear and a touch of lemon on the finish.  The citrus is crisp and balances the smoother, deeper flavors of the pear, and the oak provides a light toastiness.   The tasting notes indicate this would pair well with grilled fish and poultry as well as light cheeses.

2008 Tranquility Next up for me was one of the Alsatian-style wines, a blend of gewurztraminer (34%), muscat ottonel (34%), pinot gris (22%), and riesling (10%).  Like the Newport Chardonnay, Tranquility is also a pale yellow color.  The nose is bright with lovely floral notes and a hint of sweetness from the muscat.  A light-bodied wine, yet fuller than the Chardonnay, Tranquility is a soft dry-style wine with floral notes, low oak, and a touch of sweetness that provides depth and character.  It’s an interesting wine and my favorite of the wines I tasted that afternoon.  Tranquility is a gold medal winner for Best Vinifera Blend at the Atlantic Wine Competition.

2006 Rochambeau Named in honor of Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, the French General who fought with George Washington and helped defeat the British at the Battle of Yorktown (1781),  Newport Vineyard’s Rochambeau is a blend  of Cabernet Sauvignon and Landot Noir.   Made in the Bordeaux-style, the wine is medium-bodied, bright and tangy.  The nose has interesting notes of pepper and berries.  In the mouth, the wine is young with a tangy “back” taste and strong berry notes, particularly on the finish.  I tend to prefer stronger, deeper reds, but I was intrigued by this wine and will definitely be giving this another try on my next visit.

2007 Cabernet Franc I have become a real fan of Cabernet Franc, finding it one of the richest most satisfying reds produced here in the Northeast, and even when not touring local wineries am finding myself gravitating towards cabernet francs and zinfandels over my former favorites pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon.  Newport Vineyards’ Cabernet Franc didn’t disappoint, but I didn’t find it as strong as the Cabernet Francs from Chamard or Gouveia.  The color is a lovely jewel-tone medium garnet that subtly sparkles in the glass.  The nose is deep and soft with light notes of earth and fruit and just a hint of spice.  A medium-bodied wine, there are soft notes of fruit in the mouth – I detected dark berries and just a hint of cherry brightness.  The finish is clean with lingering notes of pepper that give the wine an interesting character.  Perhaps I had a tasting from a recently opened bottle, but I did feel that the wine needed to breathe longer to display it’s full potential.

2006 Newport Jazz I finished out the afternoon with a dessert wine, a Sauterne-style, late harvest Sauvignon Blanc.  Despite my general fondness for dessert wines, this was my least favorite of the afternoon.  A lovely dark gold color, the nose was rich and sweet and held a lot of promise that unfortunately the wine didn’t deliver.  Surprisingly, in the mouth the wine was slightly dry with a sharp finish.  The mouth feel had that silky smoothness that one expects from a dessert wine, but the balance was somehow just “off.”  It may that I had a tasting from a bad bottle, so I will definitely give this another try before writing it off altogether.

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Marguerite Barrett
Contributing Writer

Newport was an impulse.

The first week in August had been extremely difficult at work, and by Saturday morning all I wanted to do was run away.  So, at noon, while sitting in the Wethersfield Diner scarfing down omelets with Christy, I looked across the table and announced, “we’re going to Newport.”

For some time, Newport had been on my list of places to visit, and that day it just seemed like a great place to escape to.   That there are three wineries within 45-minutes of downtown Newport made the destination even more appealing.  Of course that presupposed we would arrive in time to visit the wineries; Newport is just under 3 hours driving time from Hartford, and we didn’t even hit the road until almost 1pm.  But Bacchus was smiling on us that day – traffic was light as we sailed southeast down Route 2 through Connecticut, crossing over onto Aquidneck Island (Newport County) around 3:40 and arriving at our first stop, Newport Vineyards, just after 4:00.  We later made it to Sakonnet Vineyards just in time to catch the 5:30 last call for tastings, but that’s a story for another day.

Newport Vineyards was founded by Captain Richard Alexander, who planted the winery’s first vines in 1977 on the Hopelands Farms estate.  In 1988, Alexander began a partnership with John and Paul Nunes, and together they opened the Vinland Wine Cellars on recently acquired farmland in Middletown just north of Newport.   George Cheif, Newport’s winemaker, also joined the team at this time, pressing his first grapes in 1988.   In 1995, Alexander retired, and John and Paul Nunes, now the sole owners, changed the name to Newport Vineyards.  The team won their first Gold Medal in 1998 for Newport Vineyards’ “Great White,” which to this day remains Newport’s most popular wine, and in 1999, Newport’s Vidal Ice Wine was named one of the United States’ 50 Best.

Newport Vineyards is the largest wine-grape grower in the Northeast with 60 acres spread across three farms: Hopelands Vineyards, the original vineyards, situated on the banks of the Sakonnet River and site of the oldest vines; the Perry Farm Vineyards, acquired in 1988 and site of the winery buildings and tasting room; and Nunes Farm Vineyards, acquired in 2002.  The Nunes Farm, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been in the Nunes family since 1917.  The farm itself dates back to the early 18th century, and the original 1701 farmhouse still stands on the property.

The majority of Newport’s vineyards are located near the center of Aquidneck Island (Newport County), within a few miles of the Atlantic Ocean.  The soil is a silty loam with moderate drainage which retains enough water to help with irrigation in the summer months.  The proximity to the ocean helps mitigate the dangers of fall frosts while being far enough inland to avoid “fog and benefit from the thermal heat off the land.”

The winery buildings are located in a long, single-story building  and share space with several specialty shops including a gourmet bakery, a restaurant, and a toy shop.   The vineyards of the Perry Farm, which were first planted in 1988, surround the back and side of the property extending back to the horizon.  The tasting room is a very large space divided evenly between a gift shop in the front and the tasting room/bar in the back.  In addition to selling wine and the usual assortment of wine coolers, gadgets and t-shirts, Newport Vineyards offers gift baskets and custom wine labels for their wines.

The tasting area is dominated by a very large u-shaped bar which looked as if it could easily hold 40 people comfortably.  Wine coolers range along the back wall keeping all the wines at optimum temperature and the staff moves easily back and forth in a practiced dance pouring the various tastings.  There is also an outdoor tasting area with a second bar set up just outside the main tasting room; this may serve to hold overflow and also be used for special events.

The winery is open seven days a week, Monday thru Saturday 10-5, and Sundays 12-5.  Winery tours are hosted each afternoon at 1:00 and 3:00.

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