INSIDER'S PICK: 2017 BIGGIO HAMINA PINOT NOIR 'BIHA' EOLA-AMITY HILLS (Vinous 90points) $23.9911/20/2020  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 are also doing both a white and a red option each week, with the white wine available for the discount on Thursday and Friday, while the red wine available on Friday and Saturday. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
While we didn't put this one on 'the List' of our Thanksgiving Turkey wines, you could pretty much set one of our turkey signs on the entire row of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir selections. But how fair would that be to everyone else? The entire region is tailor made to serve this time of year, so it's just not feasible to say there is just one to choose above all others. We're always a fan of what Biggio Hamina puts out (have to love a wine that quotes Dr. Pangloss from Candide), and this is a great value for an area-specific wine. The construction is from several vineyards within the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. including young vines from sources they feature in single site wines, so you can think of it as an equivalent of a Cotes de Nuits Villages level designation from Burgundy. Distinct character without the price. Fresh and aromatic red fruits with some dark earth and spice around the edges as it opens up, the wines show off the Biggio Hamina elegant style on the palate, vibrant and snappy all the way through the finish. This is also one of those wines that seems to gain body as it opens up for a few hours, intensifying the fruit and lengthening the finish, earning a more substantial experience with some patience.
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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. The wines will still be ones we highly recommend, and the tasting notes will still be our own. We are also doing both a white and a red option each week, with the white wine available for the discount on Thursday and Friday, while the red wine available on Friday and Saturday. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
While Riesling is the undeniable king grape variety in Germany, there is still plenty of room for other varietal royalty to show off if you are willing to look for it. Scheurebe (also called Samling 88, far less sexy) is a hybrid developed in the early 1900s with Riesling parentage, with an eye towards quality and durability in the more frost prone areas. While it only makes up <2% of German plantings, it has more than a few advocates and plenty of tasty examples. Our favorite quote generator for German wines, importer Terry Theise, called the grape 'Riesling's evil, horny twin' in his book Reading Between The Wines. Also his most PG-rated description of the grape. In the sweeter versions Scheurebe shows a lot of pears and white fruits, but the drier it gets the more zesty and grapefruit intensive the flavors become. This lands in the off-dry zone, just enough juicy pears and center-of-the-grape white flesh flavors with a citrus zing to the finish, a bit of a spicy fragrance. Folks looking for something fun and a little different will have a blast trying this with spicy seafood, maybe a richer poultry dish in a cream sauce.  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 are also doing both a white and a red option each week, with the white wine available for the discount on Thursday and Friday, while the red wine available on Friday and Saturday. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
A thousand pardons for not getting the second Insider's Pick out last Friday as promised. To make up for it we have a 'double feature', two wines from the same producer that can both be had for the Insider's Pick discount. Get one or the other, or maybe both if you like to compare and contrast similar wines. This winery is a long time favorite of ours, and find both of these Barberas to be top quality representatives of the regions they are from. Even though they are adjacent to each other in the Piedmont, Alba and Asti have vastly different reputations, and the wines translate those differences. Asti tends to be brighter and fresher in character, usually made in a broader everyday style as it is the most heavily planted red in it's region. Alba contains the famous regions of Barolo and Barbaresco, so Barbera often competes with plantings of Nebbiolo. In alba the soils tend to make a lighter wine, but there is a higher potential at the top end for very high achieving wines, especially when they are planted alongside Nebbiolo in some of the best vineyards like this one. Both of these are very 'serious' versions with minimal filtration and a touch of oak aging, though the Alba definitely carries a darker fruit character and has the structure to age and evolve a bit longer. Either one on their own is a show-stopper, but if you have the opportunity to pour two bottles in an evening, why not have a Barbera showdown?  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 are also doing both a white and a red option each week, with the white wine available for the discount on Thursday and Friday, while the red wine available on Friday and Saturday. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
As we so often say, it is increasingly difficult to find everyday values from Burgundy due to the relatively small amount of vineyards and the increased international demand for 'named' wines from the region. Many producers have been forced to look for outside the box ideas to create wines that can be less expensive but still speak of Burgundian character. Fortunately, some wineries like this really don't have to go that far outside the box to do so. Fichet has to label this wine 'Vin De France' because of the way the boundary lines are drawn in the Macon, despite it being from one single site just outside the small hamlet of Ige. The vineyards also sit in a bit of a hollow, making it a bit susceptible to frost in tricky years. In past years this fruit would have been sold off in bulk to a cooperative because there was still plenty of inexpensive AOC Macon to be sold. Now, it's got value as a killer wine for the price point, regardless of the name on the label. You want Macon character? You got it here; bright clean melon and white citrus aromatics, a bit of fresh apple as well, and a fleshy natural mouthfeel with no oak presence and just a touch of malolactic to round out the finish. A superb glass of wine for everyday seafood and light vegetable dishes.  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 are also doing both a white and a red option each week, with the white wine available for the discount on Thursday and Friday, while the red wine available on Friday and Saturday. We hope you are able to come by and get some wines to enjoy.
A new vintage for a store favorite. The Savoie region is off the traditional tourist line for French travelers, unless you are looking for spectacular mountain scenery, in which case it's one of the great alpine wine regions of the world. The wines are also becoming more popular with drinkers looking for lower alcohol options. Apremont and Abymes are the two most important sites here, somewhat morbidly named in honor of a terrible landslide off of Mont Granier that buried several villages and thousands of villagers nearly 800 years ago. Apremont (the 'bitter mountain') sits at the higher elevation along the mountain, and this bottling takes advantage of some of the higher parcels to catch precious extra hours of sunlight each season, milking out every last drop of ripeness and intensity that can be found in the delicate Jacquere grape. This 'intensity', of course, is all relative. If you ever heard the word 'crystalline' to describe a wine and wondered what they meant by it, this is the perfect example of that term. Clear light gold in color, the aromas are mostly fresh white fruits with hints of zest and musky melon rind, but all at a very low volume of intensity. The palate is crystalline, and there just isn't any way of getting around that word, with the freshness like mountain stream water punctuated with citrusy acidity that leaves your mouth watering for minutes afterwards. At around 11%abv, your first instinct is to think the wine is hiding some residual sugar somewhere. For this grape in this environment it just ripens without much sugar, so this is completely dry and the weight is purely from quality natural ripeness. Often thought of as just a warm weather refresher, This is about as refreshing a wine as you can find out there at any time of the year, excellent with a chill to it and ideal with salads and cooled seafood dishes. |
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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