By-the-Glass Tasting Notes: First Mile Kitchen, Dry White Wines

Let's be real: looking at a restaurant's wine list can be daunting. You go out to dinner, and you want to order a glass of wine, but what on Earth should you get? Before we started studying wine, we found this very intimidating. We'd look at a wine list and have no idea what we were really looking at. To be honest, even now, we'll look at a wine list and we're not totally sure what we're getting. There's Sauvignon Blanc on the menu. Great! But a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc? Is that going to taste more like a New Zealand Sauv Blanc, or a Californian one, or neither? Or even more often, there's California Cabernet Sauvignon on the menu. Is this particular Cab really oaky (Melissa would love that, Katie would not), or is it more in a French style? Hard to say, simply looking at the name of the wine!

So, we thought it could be helpful if we tried out a restaurant's by-the-glass wine list and made some tasting notes. That way, if you're headed to said restaurant, and you want some ideas on which wine might be the one for you, we've got you covered!

We decided to start with First Mile Kitchen. Their sommelier Yannic has put together a fantastic wine list. Another bonus of First Mile Kitchen: most restaurant by-the-glass lists are rather limited, but not this one. Their by-the-glass list is huge. There's definitely something for everyone!

We certainly couldn't tackle the whole BTG list at once, but with small pours and Melissa's help, we tasted all of the dry white wines, and then the orange wine as well! Many thanks to our stellar server, Holli, who helped us navigate our way through all of these wines. Here's our notes, and we hope you find them helpful! (though if you're at First Mile Kitchen and their somm Yannic is there, just ask him for guidance, he knows these wines inside and out!)

• Willm Reserve Dry Riesling, Alsace, France

If you look at Riesling and immediately think it's going to be sweet, this one is not. Riesling from Alsace is made as a dry white wine, without sweetness, as opposed to most of the Riesling coming out of Germany. This one is delightful. It has tropical notes to it, with lime, and pineapple, and even floral notes of jasmine. It's bright and light and has a long, clean, citrusy finish. If you're looking for an easy-sipping white wine, especially in this hot summer, this is a winner.

• Gobelsburg Gruner Veltliner, Kamptal, Austria

We love trying out these wines you don't see very often on wine menus, like Gruner Veltliner! This one really struck us as floral on the nose, and tasting of melon, like honeydew or cantaloupe. We even picked out a hint of warm bread here. This was a fun wine that we all enjoyed. It's just really different from most of the white wines we typically find, but very easy to drink.

• Eola Hills Pinot Gris, Eola-Amity, Willamette Valley, Oregon

We drank a lot of Pinot Grigio from Italy when studying for our certified exam, since that was a testable wine that could show up on our blind tasting test. It all seems to mostly taste like lemon water to us. But while Pinot Gris is the same grape as Pinot Grigio (French name vs Italian), this Pinot Gris from Oregon does NOT taste anything like bland lemon water. This is really nice, and it smells like a basket of freshly picked apples and pears. It actually tastes a hint sweet, like the sweet pear juice from a beautiful ripe pear when you bite into it. It isn't sweet wine, but if you don't like any hint of sweetness in your wine, this may not be your top choice. Katie really liked it.

• te Pa Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand

If you're a fan of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, you know that they tend to smell GREEN. To us, it often comes across as green bell peppers and celery. This one is no exception. It smells like green bell peppers and celery! In that way, it's a pretty classic New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. We also picked up some citrusy hints and maybe a little pineapple in there. If you're a fan of that tropical, green Sauv Blanc, this is your wine. It's crisp and clean!

• Mer Soleil "Silver" Unoaked Chardonnay, Monterey, California

As an unoaked Chardonnay, this wine was aged in steel tanks and not in oak barrels, and it therefore doesn't have near as much of the vanilla and butter notes as some California Chardonnays. This one reminds us of baked apples, like apple pie, with just a little of that pastry note to it as well. There's also hints of ripe pears in this, and maybe just a little lemon as well. This is a nice, easy-drinking Chardonnay that doesn't overpower you as some California Chardonnays do.

• Laberinto Sauvignon Blanc, Maule Valley, Chile

That green Sauvignon Blanc higher up on the menu from New Zealand? This is nothing like that! We enjoy that about wine--it's the same grape, but grown in different soil with different climate and different winemakers, it tastes very different. This one is tart, like lemon rinds, and it actually has a saline character to it as well. It's really interesting, tasting lemony and minerally at the same time. If you're a big New Zealand Sauv Blanc fan, this isn't going to taste like what you typically drink, but if you like tart, citrusy wines, definitely give this one a go.

• Phillipe Girard Sancerre, Sauvignon Blanc, Loire, France

Here's yet another Sauvignon Blanc, but this time from France, and again--it's completely different from the other two! This one doesn't have that green smell at all. It almost smells a little floral, with citrus notes to it, especially orange or tangerine. There's also a hint of nectarine. It also has a real mineral quality to it, like breathing in the spray at the base of a waterfall, or what you'd imagine those wet rocks at the base of a waterfall would taste like. French wine often has more mineral/earth notes to it than new world wine, and this is a good example of that. It's lovely.

• J. Moreau Chablis, Chardonnay, Burgundy, France

Chablis is the northernmost region of Burgundy in France, and anything labeled Chablis is going to be Chardonnay. Chardonnay from Chablis, like Sauvignon Blanc from Loire, tends to have more mineral notes to it than Chardonnay from California. This is no exception. This wine smells like a wet stone walkway, but in this case, instead of those citrus notes in the Sauv Blanc, you get crisp, almost slightly underripe apples, like those just picked from a tree on a cool Fall day. There's also just a bit of lemon in this, like Meyer lemon. This was a really nice wine, and a great example of Chablis, and we really enjoyed it.

• Far Niente "Post & Beam" Chardonnay, Napa Valley, California

Here again is another great example of the same grape grown in different places, and you have a completely different experience. As is classic with Chardonnay, this wine also smells of apples and pears, but here, it comes across to us as baked apples like an apple dumpling in the pastry. It smells warm, like sunbaked apples. Melissa mentioned that it smells like Fall (if only it were Fall!!!). This is the kind of wine you want to drink around a fire at the end of a Fall day. It's wonderful.

• Breaking Bread "Marmalade," North Coast, California

We decided to round out this tasting with the by-the-glass orange wine! What, you ask, is orange wine?? Typically in making white wines, the grapes are pressed and the juice is taken away from the skins right away. In orange wine, the juice is left sitting on the skins, so you end up getting this orangey color imparted to the juice. This particular wine is 70% Muscat Blanc, 15% Chardonnay, and 15% Sauvignon Blanc. It has some nice light floral notes to it, and conveniently enough, in addition to looking a little orange, it has orange and tangerine smells and flavors to go with it! This is an easy-sipping, interesting wine and a fun one as well.

We'll be back soon to check out the red by-the-glass list. But during the remainder of this hot summer, do yourself a favor and go check out all of these fantastic options on First Mile Kitchen's dry white wine list. Yannic has something for everyone and every preference, so take all your friends--you'll all find something you love!