Sonrisa
About the Wine:
Compare this wine to a slightly sweet gewürztraminer. This is an excellent choice to pair with spicy food, especially Indian, Mexican, or Thai dishes. The underlying tangerine and lemon flavors play nicely in this blend.
Sonrisa is a blend off California Orange Muscat and New York Seyval Blanc; west coast meets east coast.
These were an accidental pairing. Previously, Mike made this wine using Sauvignon Blanc and Orange Muscat. When in the next year he had agreed to buy a ton of Seyval, he switched up the blend (Swapping out the Sauvignon Blanc for Seyval) and got an even better wine. The two complement each other nicely.
This blend starts as two different wines. Orange Muscat and seyval are fermented as two separate wines. This is done so all of the residual sugar in the Muscat is not fermented into alcohol. Some of the Muscat sugar remains as a result of the really high sugar content in the Muscat grape juice. Without special yeasts, most wines stop fermenting at about 15% alcohol, regardless of how much more sugar is left in the juice. The Muscat wine tastes flat due to the lack of acidity. Comparatively, the Seyval has lower sugar at harvest (lower alcohol potential) and higher acidity. The Seyval wine is allowed to ferment to dryness. So, the Muscat provides a greater percentage of the alcohol and sugar, the Seyval the acidity. This is a sort-of 3D puzzle. Both of these wines give things to the blend that neither can alone.
Sonrisa has won the following competition medals:
Bronze - Indy International Wine Competition 2018
Bronze - The Big E Wine Competition 2018
About the Label:
When you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism. People with differing abilities contribute to society in many different ways!
The Artwork for the Sonrisa label is an original painting commissioned for this label.
Mike Appolo has known the artist’s parents for over 30 years and the artist her entire life.
As an infant, the artist was diagnosed with autism. Over the years, her parents have raised her with a strict diet, various therapies, and a loving spirit that has facilitated her progress to the point that she now wants what other young adults do - to be independent. Mike has watched her progression with a sense of awe. He really considers her an inspiration for others. She in an excellent writer and wonderful artist. Mike considers her ability to focus so intently on a goal one of her greatest assets.
Even though Mike saw her working on various craft projects over the years and has read some of her writing, Mike was unaware of the artist’s other artistic abilities. Mike’s wife Faith made him aware of these within the last year. That is they asked the artist to make an original artwork for Sonrisa. You see, Sonrisa means “Smile” in Spanish.
Even though other artists were told what Sonrisa means, nearly all others returned work with sunrises on them - not the meaning at all. Mike gave the artist the ability to choose what the artwork would be to represent the true meaning of Sonrisa - smile. The artist came up with the idea of the smiling cat. A quick phone call from the artist to Mike confirmed she was moving in that direction and had the freedom to do so. This is something Mike never would have thought up, by the way. She pressed on with her artwork and the result is a wonderful, cheery image of a true Sonrisa!