Monthly Archives: June 2017

Friday Wine Tasting 6.30.17

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Toast June good-bye with our free wine tasting from 3-7 pm. Here’s what we’ll be pouring!

MIRAVAL ROSÉ
This pure example of Provence rosé is a delicate pink color with bright red fruit aromas. The palate is clean and refreshing with tart berry flavors and hints of floral and mineral notes. The finish is light and refreshing with ample acidity.

HALL SAUVIGNON BLANC
A powerhouse Napa winery, Hall may be best known for its Cabernet. But don’t discount its Sauvignon Blanc. A gorgeous yellow-green, this wine looks like bottled summer morning sunshine. A bold nose offers lemon zest, green melon and alluring hints of jasmine. The palate continues the tropical fruit profile, adding a sharp edged acidity that is balanced by a creamy softness from time spent on lees. Open this to enjoy with anything from salads to seafood or simply for a chat with a good friend.

MARTIN RAY PINOT NOIR
This wine is an excellent representation of a classic Sonoma Pinot Noir. The nose is rich and intense with notes of black cherry, elderberry and dried rose petals. The palate is lush and juicy with flavors of cherry cola and dark earth undertones. French oak aging adds underlying hints of vanilla and toffee. Delicious and quaffable!

KLINKER BRICK WINERY CABERNET SAUVIGNON
Lodi may be a Central Coast area best known for its Zinfandel, but talented wine makers are now putting out concentrated, balanced examples of Cabernet Sauvignon. After spending over a year in French oak, this wine offers a bold nose of cherry pie and chai tea. The palate is full and lush with layers of complex flavors like cherry, black currant and leather.

How to Store Wine

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With all of our discussion of wine service temperatures during these hot summer months, it also seems that wine storage is on many people’s minds.

So, what’s the right way to store wine?

Now, I’m sure we’d all love to have one of these:

 

And, if you are lucky enough to have the means to put in a cellar or live in a house that has one already, by all means, store your wine there. That’s amazing and fantastic and I’m insanely jealous.

But in the real world we’re not all millionaires and, more importantly, we’re not all hard core wine collectors.

So, let’s take a look at some real world guidelines for your real world wine. 

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Friday Wine Tasting 6.23.17

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Come cool off from the heat with a free wine tasting, TODAY from 3-7 pm. We’ve got the wines you need to get you through this summer!

LE PROVENÇAL ROSÉ
Summer is a time made from drinking rosé and some of the best rosés come from the Provence region of France. A glorious salmon pink, this Grenache blend smells of white flowers and bright red berries. The palate is light, but soft and round, showing flavors of fresh apples, strawberry candy and a cleansing minerality. Drink this!

ESPORÃO V VERDELHO
This Portuguese grape is most closely associated with Madeira, but can also be used to produce racy, crisp white wines. Opening with a delicate citrus nose, this wine offers bright flavors of melon and stone fruit, ripening as the wine warms.

SAN FELICE CHIANTI CLASSICO
Chianti Classico wines come from a small, specialized area within the greater Chianti region. A vibrant red with a bouquet of red berries, dried violets and dusty earth. The palate is lively and acidic with tart cherry flavors, baking spice and fine, gritty tannins.

DOMAINE DU TAUCH FITOU
A Carignan blend from Fitou in France’s Languedoc-Roussillon region, this dark inky wine is burly and bold while keeping a lively, medium-weight body. The palate is a pleasant melange of juicy, ripe purple fruits and wild berries balanced by earth notes of tobacco and dried herbs.

Hot Summer Reds

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Summer is officially here and with it lots of sunshine and heat. Even here in the gorgeous temperate Bay Area, we’re already seeing record temperatures. We huddle inside with the air conditioner (if you’re lucky), venturing out only once the sun goes down and there is relief.

The heat changes a lot about our behavior, especially in terms of what we eat and drink. You couldn’t pay me enough to turn on the oven these days. Even standing over the stove isn’t that appealing. So it’s all about the grill or “heatless” meals for me. And even beyond cooking methods, the style of food we want to eat when it’s hot also changes. A lasagna (even if I don’t have to turn the oven on to cook it) just isn’t appetizing when it’s a sweltering, humid 90+ outside. We turn to lighter fare: salads, cold pastas, light seafoods, cold tapas/charcuterie. Even our red meat dishes go lighter in the summer, changing from braises to burgers.

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Friday Wine Tasting 6.16.17

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Don’t forget to come by for our free wine tasting, TODAY from 3-7 pm.

CMS SAUVIGNON BLANC
Predominantly Sauvignon Blanc with small amounts of Chardonnay and Marsanne added for body and richness, this Columbia Valley wine offers a beautiful tropical fruit profile with a playful and lively texture, clean acidity and a hint of green herbs on the finish.

SCOTT PINOT NOIR
Scott consistently produces rich, elegant Pinot Noir. This wine from the Arroyo Seco region of Monterey County is made from low yield vineyards; a method thought to better express the delicate characteristics and terroir influences that make Pinot Noir such an enchanting and often frustrating grape. Medium bodied with bright acidity, the palate is full of sweet and spicy flavors like cherry pie, ginger, honey, toasted almonds and vanilla.

HEDGES FAMILY ESTATE RED MOUNTAIN
This Washington State red is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot offering dense color, firm tannins and plentiful, bracing acidity. Bright flavors of cherries and currants partner with rich earthy notes of leather, dried herbs and sweet cedar. Drinkable now, this is a wine that will benefit from aging, where its more robust characteristics will soften and evolve.

CATENA MALBEC
Bodega Catena Zapata is one of the most respected wineries in Argentina. Their Catena line of wines are single varietal blends from throughout their top tier vineyards. Showing excellent balance and complexity, this is a wine ready for immediate consumption, yet also fully equipped for decades of aging. This wine is deeply colored with intoxicating aromas of red and purple fruits and a soft, velvety palate with fine tannins. Juicy flavors of blueberries and blackberries mingle with notes of warm spice and leather into a long lingering finish.

Live: Alternative Format Discussion

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As we discussed in our last post, there are several alternative formats and closures that your wine can come in. You’re probably personally familiar with most of them: synthetic corks, screw caps, cans, boxes…

You probably also have your opinions and assumptions about what these formats say about a wine. I know I do!

But what is the truth?

With the help of some of my favorite wine guinea pigs, we sat down to try some of these wines and have an honest conversation about what we thought about them.

Did our assumptions and preconceptions stand?

Join us and let me know your thoughts!

https://youtu.be/rRn-0pld2aE

Corks, Caps and Cans

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So much about wine is simple perception. We all have our own ideas about wines we perceive to be good/cheap/bad/snooty. One thing that has a big impact on these perceptions is the type of container a wine comes in.

The traditional wine format is a bottle with a natural cork. But you can also get wines in bottles with synthetic corks, screw cap bottles, boxes with bladders and even aluminum cans. Just reading about these different formats, I bet you’ve formed some opinions on the wine that comes in them.

But how much do we really know about these different formats? Why do they exist and what are their pros and cons? More importantly, are our assumptions and biases about them correct?

Let’s look into it:

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Friday Wine Tasting 6.9.17

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We have an all California lineup this week. Come taste some delicious wines from the Golden State! Today from 3-7 pm!

THE 75 WINE CO. SAUVIGNON BLANC
Sourcing the fruit from throughout the state of allows winemakers to compose a complex, intense and balanced wine. A true reflection of Sauvignon Blanc, this wine offers a concentrated nose of honeydew and lemon curd. The palate is equally rich with peach cobbler and candied citrus peel finishing with a refreshing acidity and clean wet stone minerality.

A.P. VIN KANZLER VINEYARD PINOT NOIR
A renowned producer of small batch Pinot Noir, A.P. Vin sources this wine exclusively from the Kanzler Vineyard in the Sonoma Coast. Graceful and lively, this bottle offers notes of rich dried red fruits, delicate flowers and damp forest floor. Silky and supple with moderate body and fine tannins, this wine will continue to age gracefully for the next several years.

CULT CABERNET SAUVIGNON
This is a classic Napa Valley Cabernet presenting a soft, dense mouth-feel, well integrated tannins and a long, lingering finish. The nose is bold with fragrances of black and purple fruits and hints of oak spice. Juicy, jammy fruit continues on the palate along with hints of leather and tobacco creating a complex experience that begs for roasted red meat.

VALRAVN OLD VINE ZINFANDEL
A small batch project by the people behind Banshee Wines, these dry farmed vines ranging in age from 50-105, produce concentrated, intense fruit. Rich and complex, hints of mocha, violets and licorice wrap around a core of pure wile strawberry, raspberry and blackberry fruit. A fresh acidity and peppery finish keep this wine feeling lively and refreshing.