Town revisit: Colchester

We have driven by a certain sign so many times in the last five years and today finally stopped at Priam Vineyards. Considering it is the only vineyard in proximity to where we live (and our love our wine), it's surprising it took us so long to get here. Whatever the reason we stayed away so long, we finally remedied it today.

Priam does not have a long, winding trail through grapevines to finally arrive at the main house. It's not even a short drive really. You turn off the main road, see a small sign on your left, drive past some dirt mounds and then notice the impressive barn-like structure.

The large New England red building where the tastings take place is lovely. On the Priam website the building is not red, but the website photo could have been taken years ago. (In fact, we're starting to get used to vineyard website photos being less than representative). As with our past Connecticut vineyard stops, the parking lot was packed. The small, interior bar area then was not surprisingly wall-to-wall people. We hung out for a while and finally got our chance to taste the wines.

We had noticed in the past that Priam does not put the year on its bottles, so we asked about that. We were told that there is a good deal of expense involved in putting a year on a wine's label. However, the vineyard is looking into a process for stamping the year on a bottle's cork.

The wines we tasted were what you would expect from a Connecticut vineyard. The whites were better than the reds and all were somewhat sweet. We would recommend the Gewurztraminer, a white with grapefruit notes.

The grounds are small. There is a nice back patio area to sit and sip wine. The owners' house can be seen on a hill from the back of the vineyard with the rows of grapes splitting the middle of the landscape. I couldn't help but think the view would be more impressive from the house than from where we were sitting.

The most unique aspect of the vineyard involves its energy use. Priam is the first, and at this writing, only vineyard in Connecticut completely solar powered.

The panels are positioned off to the side of the patio giving an urbane touch to the otherwise rural landscape.
Besides using solar power the vineyard also picks its grapes by hand and and does not use pesticides. We would recommend this vineyard to anyone interested in seeing traditional agriculture meet green farming--and, of course, to anyone interested in just having a nice glass of wine.

Check out our first Colchester visit.