 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.
Another pre-Thanksgiving wine to get you in the mood. We always love recommending Alsatian wines for this time of year for their versatility over the broad spectrum of foods and flavor combinations that make it to the holiday table. Many people may feel adverse to trying them expecting them to all be sweeter (a pre-associated prejudice against the tall narrow bottles, perhaps), but by and large they are much drier than people think. Grapes like Pinot Blanc and Chasselas make up a lot of their everyday wines and blends, and both are very dry and clean tasting. Riesling here also tends to be much drier and minerally/stony on the palate than in most parts of the world, though sweetness does creep in. Point being, you stand to get a fairly dry wine when picking an Alsatian wine, and a 'Metiss' field blend (also called a 'Gentil' by many producers) are a great way to introduce yourself to the region. Bott-Geyl is one of the long-standing greats of the region, known for high quality as well as one of the longest followers of organic/Biodynamic viticulture in the region. Their blend is primarily Riesling, Pinot Blanc and Chassselas, but also has a splash of Muscat, which brings a touch of perfume and prettiness without influencing the overall sweetness. Clean and forward on the nose with lots of cool pear and white fruits, fresh mountain streams and a bit of orange blossom and wildflower from the Muscat. Just enough weight to the palate to give the fruit some body and intensity, but no sugary sweetness, nothing cloying at all, just pure juice with some acidity to the finish that brings some tingle to the tongue. The clean fruit character handles all the savory and sweet combos in the food, while the body can contend with a lot of the creamier sides and diversity of meats.
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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.
With Thanksgiving approaching more rapidly than many of us would like to admit, it's actually a good time to start thinking about what to serve and accumulating some special bottles to avoid the late rush. Beaujolais and the Gamay grape is of course one of the classic all-purpose pairings, soft and savory with very easy tannins that meld with the broad spectrum of foods at the traditional holiday table. But Gamay isn't the only game in town, just the best publicized. Vespolina is the primary 'everyday' grape in the Northern Piedmont region near the city of Novara, at one time famous for Nebbiolo based wines from Gattinara and other sites, but post WWII lost a lot of the vineyards due to the rural population moving to big cities hoping to find work. The last few decades has seen a return to agricultural life here, and with it the rise of small producers revitalizing the sloped vineyards. Working barely 10 acres among three separate sites, Bonaperti has been a leading name here, and his Vespolina is routinely among the best examples of the grape every vintage. Juicy cherry and raspberry skin fruit on the nose with dark spice and tobacco leaf notes parallel the juicy/gamey combo of Gamay, a big aroma given some time open but never intense or blowing you back from the glass. The mouthfeel is a little fuller and darker than a Beaujolais but with similar juiciness and super-fine tannin texture that leaves just a kiss of dustiness behind, bringing out all the lovely dark savory nuances of the fruit. This is the type of wine that really shine with the gamey dark meats and savory side dishes, sausage or oyster stuffing, etc., but can still treat the lighter foods quite nicely.  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.
Pinot Noir isn't often thought of as a grape of high potential in Sancerre, definitively second in plantings and reputation to Sauvignon Blanc, and even in the hands of the top producers it's primarily used for making Rose. Absolute dreamy, beautiful Rose that we can't get enough of, so it isn't a bad thing. There just aren't many producers putting the effort into making a Sancerre Rouge of much character; even one of the best and best known, Domaine Hippolyte Reverdy (not directly related), had to be convinced by the importer Kermit Lynch to develop theirs early on. When you get one that's really on it, that hits on every cylinder, they are every bit the equivalent of their Burgundian counterparts, and at this price they are a stellar value. Deep for a Pinot in color with some savory black cherry skin and dried red fruit aromas at first, a bit closed at first but getting brighter and riper over some time in the glass, a sign this wine definitely has some staying power for aging. The palate has a bit more oompf that your usual basic Bourgogne, mostly provided by that tell-tale chalky minerality so associated with Samcerre, really gives the elegant fruit and tannins some extra presence and intensity through the finish. Much like the Bordeaux in last week's Insider, this is a great wine for enjoying over a full day or two, giving it time to evolve and show more of the complexity hidden under it's youth, something rarely able to be done on a Pinot at this price.  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. 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.
We have greatly missed doing in-store tastings over the last year (hope to return to doing them soon), not just because of the chance for you to sample the wines we enjoy presenting, but it gives us the opportunity to bring you some of the great personalities from the wine world. Importer Aymeric d'Alton had not been bringing in for long his family's selection of small hand curated estates before the shutdown, and even though he only came in a couple times to pour he quickly became a store favorite. The knowledge, the intelligence, the passion, the occasional cursing (but with a French accent, so it's charming) always made for an excellent day for everyone. It also makes life easier when literally everything in their book is a rock star. The family has a distinct idea in mind for the wines they want to represent, and from bottling to bottling each Chateau hits their mark with a classic, structured character with lots of evolution potential and value, from their least expensive to most prestigious estates. This newer arrival to us is just a baby, but with a little time and patience oh such a delicious baby. Mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with a healthy dose of Merlot and splashes of Cab Franc and Petit Verdot, this has immense dark fruit and tannic character for the price point, lots of black currant and youthful toasty character on the nose that deepens and sweetens over several hours open. Earthy and intense on the palate as well,lots of firm dark tannin that will soften some but stays fairly present throughout, as it should for a wine that can easily see another decade or more ahead of it. It's a weekend wine, in that you can easily enjoy it at your own pace over an entire weekend and never feel like it's doing to fade. This, like all the wines in Aymeric's stable, shows how great the value is within Bordeaux for those capable of seeing beyond the 'known' names and are willing to explore. |
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
July 2024
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