When you live in a state that has more than 3,300 wineries, many of which are icons to wine lovers around the world, it takes a lot for an East Coast winery to get noticed. I could imagine this conversation at a California wine bar:
Moon Child: “Hey, Summer, did you see that a winery from Georgia won a lot of awards at the San Diego International Wine Competition?”
Summer: “Moon Child, you are, like, so kidding me, right? I didn’t think they could, like, make wine over there.”
Make wine we do here in Georgia. And as hard as it may be for people to believe, there are a handful of wineries that strive for quality and more frequently are getting noticed for their efforts.
Dahlonega’s Frogtown Cellars recently stunned attendees at the prestigious San Diego wine competition, including the competition’s organizer, Robert Whitley, who wrote in his column: “When I consider the wine regions of the world, Georgia — too hot, too humid — is never on my mind.”
Frogtown owners Craig and Cydney Kritzer submitted seven wines to the competition, which is predominately a California contest despite its international moniker. Five were awarded gold medals and two silver, beating out many well-regarded West Coast winemakers.
“Wow!” was Craig Kritzer’s reaction to the news from San Diego. “Frogtown has finally achieved a game-changing competition result. I was, needless to say, very proud of this accomplishment. I also thought that Frogtown has been building for this result.”
The winery, in the Frogtown district of Lumpkin County, sits high in what Kritzer calls the Dahlonega Plateau, more than 1,600 feet above sea level. Such elevations mitigate much of Georgia’s malevolent summer weather. Excessive heat does pose challenges to makers of fine wine.
Longtime lovers of wine, especially Bordeaux, the Kritzers wanted to explore the art and science of winemaking, which led to the founding of Frogtown in 1998. Craig, who left his law practice in 2005, has always been the de facto winemaker, but for a period of time he was ably assisted by his daughter Jordan, a graduate of the renowned winemaking program at the University of California at Davis. Starstruck by the bright lights of Northern California winemaking (and a future husband in the wine trade), Jordan left the family business in 2006 to make wine for Chalk Hill Estate Winery. She’s now the head winemaker for Epoch Estate Winery in Paso Robles, Calif.
To say the Kritzers are committed to quality Georgia wine, even though it can be a herculean task some years, is an understatement. The Kritzers are none too pleased to see other Georgia wineries supplement their wines with as much as 25 percent of grapes from outside the state and still call them Georgia wines. Such practices, by the way, are completely legal.
Here’s a snippet of their statement on this issue: “Many East Coast wineries, including wineries in Georgia, systematically blend California wine, juice or concentrate into their state-labeled wines without any attention to the ethical issues such winemaking practices create in wine labeling. Under specific and detailed wine labeling laws, the federal government, by proscribing this winemaking practice, simply encourages, in our opinion, fraudulent and deceptive labeling practices throughout the East Coast.”
“... Frogtown has proven proper ethical labeling can be accomplished so the wine-tasting public is aware of what is in their purchased wines.”
Frogtown does use out-of-state grapes for some of its wines, but this is clearly stated on the label. Most of the winery’s grapes come from the Kritzers’ 44 acres of vineyards.
Ethical wine labeling and gold medals, that’s a tough combo to deny even for California-centric wine observers. Whitley, who is now particularly smitten by Frogtown’s marsanne wine, went on to say in his account of Frogtown’s San Diego successes: “I wondered how a winery from Georgia [that I had barely heard of] could mingle with the big boys in a major international wine competition and skate off with five gold medals.” After learning about the Kritzers and their three-level, gravity-flow winery in the Georgia mountains, he wonders no more.
Gil Kulers is a certified wine educator and a wine consultant for Tower Beer Wine Spirits. You can reach him at gil.kulers@wine kulers.com.
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2009 Frogtown Cellars Marsanne, Lumpkin County $20
Two thumbs way up
Complex aromas of minerals, apricot, white peach, honeycomb, dry pineapple, with a spicy fruitcake quality. It has tightly woven flavors of tart orange, pineapple, grapefruit, a mintlike eucalyptus and white pepper, with a touch of jalapeño on the finish. Quite refreshing.
Note: Wines are rated on a scale ranging from thumbs down, one thumb mostly up, two thumbs up, two thumbs way up, and golden thumb award. These are suggested retail prices as provided by the winery, one of its agents or a local distributor.
