 Even though we will not be doing the public tasting portion of the Insider's Pick until further notice, we will still be offering the wine for purchase with the usual 10% discount on Thursday and Friday. The wines will still be ones we highly recommend, and the tasting notes will still be our own. We will be returning to doing just the one wine on Thursdays and Fridays until further notice. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
This is always one of our favorite domestic Rose wines vintage after vintage, not because it's always trying to be 'the best' or 'most popular', but because it's always bringing something new to the table. Winemaker Andrew Jones is a long time viticulturalist traveling up and down the Central Coast, planting and maintaining vineyards for over twenty years. With such diverse terrain and climate to cover, there are vast numbers of grape varieties to work with that make sense, and many land owners willing to produce something that's unique. Many of the Field Recordings wines will change sources and evolve over time, but the Rose seems to change course almost yearly depending on which fruit suits him the best; a couple of the previous vintages featured Valdiguie, but this year is not on the list at all. The base concept this year is very Provencal, with Cinsault the dominant grape, and the unique player this time is a Spanish grape called Albillo Mayor. In Ribera del Duero and some other Tempranillo based wines this white grape is used in small amounts to help soften the tannins; here the grape brings a little extra acidity the same way Vermentino or Ugni Blanc do in Provence. Bright, quenching watermelon, cherry skin and citrus skin aromas with a little underlying note of dried herbs, very much Provence inspired but with a bit more red fruit. Round feeling in the mouth with a sort of red grapefruit-esque quenching juiciness and a little bit of acidity in the background to keep it from feeling too soft through the finish. A very Euro-centric style of Rose for a domestic producer, great for parties and light Summer dishes.
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 Even though we will not be doing the public tasting portion of the Insider's Pick until further notice, we will still be offering the wine for purchase with the usual 10% discount on Thursday and Friday. The wines will still be ones we highly recommend, and the tasting notes will still be our own. We will be returning to doing just the one wine on Thursdays and Fridays until further notice. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
It's the wine so nice, they named it twice! The New York, New York of Italian wine. And like most things on wine labels, the extra details do matter. Gavi is the name of the town and wine region in the southern end of the Piedmont, the most white grape centric in the region, and features the Cortese grape. Cortese is planted fairly liberally across much of Northern Italy, but Gavi is by far the most noteworthy. The commune around the city of Gavi itself has always carried a distinct reputation above their neighbors for outstanding quality, so much so that Gavi di Gavi was elevated from a DOC to DOCG status. While there can be very good producers from other parts of Gavi, the consistency and quality of wines from Gavi di Gavi are hard to beat. Lots of zesty white fruits, melon rind and cool honeysuckle fruit on the nose that gets warmer and a bit tropical as it opens up. The mouthfeel has a bit of weight to it but still feels crisp with acidity, really bringing out the zesty fruits on the palate finishing with a green-edged dry tone. This holds up very well to both lighter and relatively bold fish as well as lightly herbed pork or poultry, or can do well on its own for the more adventurous out there. INSIDER'S PICK: 2020 YVES CUILLERON MARSANNE IGP COLLINES RHODONIENNES 'LES VIGNES d'a COTE' $22.997/7/2022  Even though we will not be doing the public tasting portion of the Insider's Pick until further notice, we will still be offering the wine for purchase with the usual 10% discount on Thursday and Friday. The wines will still be ones we highly recommend, and the tasting notes will still be our own. We will be returning to doing just the one wine on Thursdays and Fridays until further notice. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
Marsanne is part of the white grape holy trinity in the Northern Rhone alongside Roussanne and Viognier, primarily looked at as the workhorse grape behind the two show ponies. Viognier gets featured more often as a solo variety (most famously in Condrieu), while Roussanne tends to get top billing for its uniquely haunting and exotic aromas that brings such fame to the white wines of Hermitage, St. Joseph, and certain famous examples in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Marsanne is very popular to grow because it is naturally fuller bodied and easier to grow than the other two, but tends to not age quite as well so it doesn't get featured in the decades old wines that get so famously exalted in poems and novels. Better winemaking technology in recent decades have helped stem many of those aging problems, and in the hands of outstanding producers like Yves Cuilleron they can be quite outstanding. Clean ripe aromas of white fruits and citrus skin with a touch of what is often described as an almond note, which gets more pronounced as the wine airs out. The texture is fairly full and viscous in the mouth with lots of cool acidity and natural tannins giving lots of lengthy dryness to the fruit. The vineyard this wine comes from falls just a handful of meters from the borders of Condrieu and St. Joseph, and really provides loads of value. A terrific food wine with richer seafood and poultry dishes, especially for those that want a Chardonnay alternative that plays with more exotic ingredients. |
The Best of the Best.We offering free tastings on these wines in the store every Thursday and Friday, and a 10% discount off the retail price through the duration of the day. Come on by and give them a try! Archives
November 2023
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