United States of Vermouth - Rosso Vino Vermouth di Salida

Rosso Vino Vermouth di Salida 

Origin: Salida, Colorado 

Producer: Vino Salida Wine Cellars (in collaboration with Wood’s High Mountain Distillery 

ABV: 17.5% 

Wine Base: Black Muscat, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc 

Known Botanicals: Cardamom, Cinnamon, Clove, Ginger, Nutmeg, Orange, and Wormwood 

Sugar: Sweetened with Chaffee County alfalfa honey 

Look – Clear, bright rose madder with a hint of light purple and scarlet highlights. 

Nose – Sweet honey with green apple and floral overtones (a bit of gardenia?) with hint of woody funk.

Mouth – Big honey sweetness at the front of the taste with a light persistent acidity. Mid taste follows with cinnamon-y wallop which resolves into a crescendoing ginger burn. The taste ends with a mild tannic bitterness. 

 

The color of this vermouth is amazing! It glows and has the clarity of a rhodolite garnet. The taste starts off with a sweet Colorado honey that nearly overwhelms and then takes a left turn to a woody, cinnamon-y acridity followed by a building burn that leaves the sweetness in the ashes before the light tannins (In vermouth!) spin you around and drop you down. Whatever wormwood is used in its making are subtle at best, which if were more present. might make this vermouth a more satisfying journey, rather than a meandering tour with some questionable side stops. 

But I give it up to winemaker Steve Flynn and distiller friend P.T. Wood for making the commitment to crafting a distinctive, if not perfect, vermouth. Flynn’s commitment to making wine solely from grapes grown in Colorado – specifically from the Grand Valley AVA, a high elevation viticulture area near the Utah border. They’ve been growing grapes in the Grand Valley since the 1880s. But like most AVAs in the USA, between prohibition and WWII, winemaking as we know it didn’t take off there until the 1960s. 

Flynn didn’t have his eye on making vermouth when he started his winery, Vino Salida Wine Cellars, in 2009, but in 2013, he made a big batch of wine, that as he puts it, “that didn’t quite make the cut” and decided to have it distilled into neutral spirit. P.T. Wood, the distiller, put the bug into Flynn’s ear to use the white brandy to fortify Flynn’s wine (not the bad batch) and create new vermouth. By 2014, the stuff was available and became one of Flynn’s proudest accomplishments. 

Tastes (5 point scale)

Wood / Vanilla 3 

Bitter  2 

Alcohol 0 

Sweet 4 

Acid 2

Caramel 0 

Aromas 

Spicy 0 

Astringent (barks, roots) 3 

Vegetal / Herbal 1 

Floral 3 

Fruity 2