Idaho's largest winery has new owner

Idaho's largest winery has a new owner.

The Ste. Chapelle Winery, located in the Snake River Valley, has been purchased by Precept Wine. The Seattle, WA, company is the largest privately held, and second largest overall, wine company in the Northwest.

The seller was Ascentia Wine Estates of Healdsburg CA. Precept already owned the Sawtooth Estate Winery, also located in the Snake River Valley AVA.

Andrew Browne, founder and CEO of the nine-year-old Precept Wine, said, "This is a reunion of sorts for me, having worked with the winery when it was part of Corus Brands."

Ste. Chapelle Winery is best known for its Riesling, Soft Red, Soft White and Huckleberry wines. It produces approximately 130,000 cases of wine annually and distributes nationally.

Ste. Chapelle, the largest winery in Idaho, was founded in 1976. It was purchased by Constellation Brands in 2001, then by Ascentia in 2008.

"We are thrilled with Precept's purchase of Ste. Chapelle," said Moya Shatz Dolsby, Idaho Wine Commission executive director. "It shows well for the state of Idaho that a large company from Washington state has not only one but two Idaho wineries, and I look forward to furthering the commission's relationship with Precept Wine."

Precept's portfolio includes Waterbrook, Canoe Ridge, Sagelands, HOUSE Wine, Willow Crest, and Apex Cellars in Washington state; Primarius in Oregon, and Shingleback and Red Knot from the McLaren Vale in Australia.

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Baccarat trying new-design wine glasses

After years of judging in wine competitions that use different types of glasses, I can attest to the fact that the glass sometimes makes or hurts the wine.

While it's no sin to drink coffee from a paper cup or a soft drink from a plastic one, sipping wine from cheap glass is the antithesis of pleasure. Fine glass increases the pleasure on several levels -- visual, temperature, mouth feel.

Riedel, for example, of Austria has emerged as the go-to glassware for such events and, for those who can afford them, for home entertaining use as well.

Now, however, another globally-known luxury crystal glassware manufacturer -- the French company Baccarat -- has begun marketing a new line of wine glasses with a broad base resembling the "tastevin," a saucer-like cup used by winemakers and sommeliers to taste wines.

The glasses also have sloping sides and a very narrow narrow lip Baccarat says prevents the alcohol from overpowering other aromas.

"The main subject in the final stretch should no longer be the alcohol anymore, but the aromas and the bouquet the fine wines have to offer," Bruno Quenioux, technical adviser of the Chateau Baccarat collection of professional wine glasses, told the Reuters news service.

In the aroma "you can see the smokiness, some flowers, definitely the glass leads you to have the mineral side of the wine," he said. " ... When you go back to the regular glass, you have rusticity. You have something not so subtle."

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Nova Scotia entry takes Finger Lakes gold

Among the many places that do not come quickly to mind when talking about quality wines, Nova Scotia is right up there on my list.

That's why it caught my eye when an entry from the Canadian province took home a gold medal from the recent Finger Lakes International Wine Competition held in Rochester, NY.

It also was interesting to note that among its zillion columnists -- including yours truly on several topics, Examiner.com has a writer who specializes in coverage of the Nova Scotia wine scene.

Here's a link to Veronica Leonard's report on the gold medal victory of Jost Vineyards and the good showing of several other Nova Scotia wineries.

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