Wine of the Week: Montezuma Winery 2023 Voleur Series Catawba Vin Gris
March 28, 2025: Snappy, fruity, and minerally–this is dry catawba at its best
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Winemaker Phil Plummer makes a bazillion different wines for the Martin Family wineries. Native, hybrid, and vinifera grapes? Check, check, check. Still, pet-nat, Methode Champenois, late harvest, and fortified? Yeah. All of those, too.
His most interesting and unique wines are labeled under an experimental series called Voleur. Not every one of these experiments is successful (sorry, Phil!), but this one absolutely is.
There is a lot of bad catawba wine out there, and it usually falls into one of two camps: syrupy sweet and unbalanced, or all foxiness without much complexity beneath. But the better examples I’ve tasted this month—the stuff like Montezuma Winery 2023 Voleur Series Catawba Vin Gris ($20*)—are appealing, refreshing, and important reminders of why this old (1800s old!) American-born hybrid was once so important to the American wine industry.
The nose starts with a pop of that classic catawba foxiness (a fruity-grapey quality that I still struggle to describe in any meaningful way) with waves of strawberry jam, green apple, and citrus blossom under it.
Light-bodied and low-alcohol (9.2% abv), the palate is tart and crackling with acidity. Green apple flavors dominate, along with notes lime zest and barely ripe strawberry. As it warms just a little, there is an intriguing saline-mineral note that kind of reminded me of a fino sherry.
Easily one of the best examples of dry catawba I’ve ever tasted.
It looks like it might be sold out on the website, but if you ever come across a bottle, check it out.
Montezuma Winery 2023 Voleur Series Catawba Vin Gris
Region: Finger Lakes AVA (New York)
Grapes: 100% cayuga
ABV: 9.2%
RS: 0
TA: 12.3
pH: 3.24
Production: 127 cases
Rating: 90 pts
Price: $20*
*Sample Provided by Winery