Our $99.99 Fall Case

Fall is upon us and everyone has been saying how they would love us to put together another case of "everyday drinkers" to enjoy with football, friends or just because. So, we've put a mixed case together for only $8.33 a bottle!

Also, as a thank you for all your support (we sold over 315 of our summer case special!), the first 100 orders will be entered into a raffle to win a 3L (Double Magnum) bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne ($375 value). Now who doesn't want a 3L bottle of bubbly for their holiday party?!?!?
Winestore $99.99 case of wine for fall (Only $8.33 a bottle!!!!)

Call us @ 704-442-4024 to order!

Was: $137.99
Now: $99.99 (SAVE 28%!)

3 x 2006 El Nino Loco
Back by popular demand - potentially the most food friendly wine in the store this Southern Rhone knockout is perfect for Saturday and Sunday football.

3 x 2005 Mestizaje
100% Bobal (yes, it is the best red grape you have never heard of) from Spain that will make you wonder why you haven't been drinking this stuff for years!

3 x 2007 Cypress Chardonnay
An easy drinking Chardonnay from our friends at J Lohr - chock full of tropical fruit with a rich and creamy finish!

3 x 2007 Tariquet Sauvignon Blanc
Our best selling Sauvignon Blanc that is crisp, easy to drink, and best of all, affordable!

Taste 1985 Silver Oak Bonny's Vineyard

Taste the Best in the World
Saturday - September 20, 2008
11am-8pm

I'm getting kinda tired of my cellar, truth be told. It's not that I don't like the wines down there in the basement, but I'm tired of looking at them. More specifically, I'm tired of looking at them and not having enough excuses to open them. My kids are teenagers, my wife and I are broke down busy, and I have plenty enough wines that I'm supposed to taste and write about that I never really get to the stuff in the basement.

So it sits there and I just feel guilty. That's why one of the wines we're drinking at the High End Tasting is 1985 Silver Oak Bonny’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. It's a legendary bottle and it's been in my cellar for two decades a-slumbering and I'm not going to get to it anytime soon. So it's your turn.

2005 Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape - I made the bold (and probably asinine) statement that the 2005 Beaucastel may be the best bottle of wine they have ever produced. Of course, I will add the caveat that I was tasting it out of barrel and I was excepting any of their Hommage bottles. I wonder how it's tasting now?

We've got a couple of other brilliant Chateaneufs for the tasting as well, just in case it turns out that I was clueless about the Beaucastel (I'm feeling pretty confident) but the 2006 Domaine Janasse Chateauneuf-du-Pape Vielles Vignes (Old Vines) and the 2005 Giraud Chateauneuf-du-Pape les Grenaches de Pierre should fill in nicely for any inadequacies. Still needing a Grenache fix? The 2004 Clos Des Fees La Petite Siberie (this was even too over the top for Robert Parker) from southern France is available too.

Lots of other frighteningly heralded wines in the upcoming High End Tasting: Robert Foley's 2006 Claret for one. His Claret bottles are Bordeaux-styled blends that have as much oomph and power as a locomotive and the grace of a dancer.

Finca Villacreces produces delectable Ribera del Duero; their 2005 Nebro (only 200 bottles brought into the United States) bottling has escaped my grasp so far. Not for lack of trying: I'm a huge fan and these old vines growing next door to Vega Sicilia once went into that benchmark winery's top bottlings. 2005 is a great vintage, so I'm expecting, uhm, how should I put it, sex?

Oh, what? You wanted Vega Sicilia? Okay, fine, We're opening the 2001 Vega Sicilia "Valbuena 5 ano". So there.

Besides being the name of a Simpsons episode, Large Marge was a ghostly character in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. There's a very large Priorate wine called Marge. I like that wine a lot, and Marge has a big brother by the name of Roquers de Porrera. The 2005 bottling is likely to be gargantuan.

A gem from Italy as well: 2005 Montevetrano is one of the many fantastic wines that Ricardo Cottarello oversees. A blend of Cabernet, Merlot and Aglianico, this too is powerful stuff.

2006 Marcoux Vielles Vignes
A fat and fullish styled year, and indeed one that some consider superior to 2005 (not this guy but never mind), 2006 has fruit to spare. Consider this a guaranteed winner in the cellar or on the table tonight. Simply put, just hurry up and buy it.

2006 Brewer Clifton Pinot Noir "Mount Carmel"
Brewer Clifton is rightly considered one of the top producers in the Santa Barbara region. Their Pinot Noirs are huge, in the big and rich style that has held sway in the last several years.

Other wines of juicy goodness:
2005 Elyse Vineyards "Morisoli" Zinfandel

2005 Tofanelli Zinfandel

Happy Tasting and we'll see you Saturday!

Doug Frost, MS MW
Master Sommelier & Master of Wine

I do like sweet wine and I'm man enough to admit it

This is the time of year when I'm opening Rieslings; hot and humid weather seems to call for the lightest, crispest, cool-to-cold wines possible. For many of us, that means Riesling, though Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc and Pinot Grigio (to name a few) could probably answer the call of thirst just as effectively.

But Riesling is the fastest growing white variety in the US marketplace and has been for nearly two years. "Wait!" I can hear some protest, "I don't like sweet wine." Well, that's just fine with me. I do like sweet wine and I'm man enough to admit it.

But Riesling doesn't have to be sweet: the Aussies in particular have brought a lot of very nice Riesling into the US, most of which is relatively dry. The Austrians too make excellent dry Riesling; I drink those too. But I've long believed that Rieslings are brilliant food wines, especially when they're a little bit sweet. Why? Because, for one, many popular dishes have some sweetness to them, including many Asian cuisines. Heck, some chefs finish their marinara with a secret dose of sugar. When the ingredients on a plate are sweeter than the wine they're accompanying, the wine can seem tart and even slightly bitter to some people.

Moreover, I love spicy foods and the heat receptors in the mouth, the ones that tell you something spicy is "hot", can actually be fooled by something sweet, just the same way they can be cooled by dairy products. A sweet wine can douse the fire from that Thai Crazy Salad or an overdose of somebody's hot barbeque sauce.

Riesling too has the remarkable ability to be loaded with aromas and flavors even when very light weight, even when it is not particularly ripe. A typical German Riesling from the Mosel Valley usually has less than ten percent alcohol, yet the wine is chockfull of flavor and character. You've probably never tasted a Chardonnay with less than ten percent alcohol, but I can assure you that there's nothing very likeable about such a tart, unripe Chardonnay.

And Riesling usually exhibits lip-smacking tartness, at least when it's grown in the world's favored spots for the grape: Germany, Austria, Alsace in France, a few cool spots in Australia, lots of places in New Zealand and the Pacific Northwest, Michigan and New York.

Plenty of other white wines have that tart propensity too, but few seem to balance it so skillfully against rich fruitiness as the Germans. Their favored vineyards exist at sometimes-dizzying slopes, facing mostly south, and angled to soak up every ray of sun in an otherwise cool climate. Without their perfect vineyards, German Rieslings would be tart only, and couldn't convey their cornucopia of flowers and fruits: peach, apricot, nectarine, apple, pear, mango, pineapple, lemon, lime and orange.

And whether sweet or dry, the extreme tartness of many so-called sweet German Rieslings is such that the words "sweet" and "tart" quickly lose their meanings. As my eldest daughter has pointed out for years, her favorite German wines start sweet and finish dry. And that, on this early Fall day, sounds perfect.

Wine Only Made Once A Century!

2000 Trimbach Hommage de Jean

I've described on this site previously my belief that wine collecting should focus upon great, not merely very good wine. It's not that I don't drink merely good wines; heck, I'll drink boring wine if I need to.

But if you're going to put something in the cellar, make sure it's something that will excite you and your friends when you pull it out years later.

Perhaps now that you've endured this little diatribe, you may be surprised to hear me admit that my next scheduled cellar purchase is some Pinot Gris. Yep, that's right. Pinot Gris, the grape they turn into boring lemon/apple water when they make it in Italy. Well, okay, actually Jermann and Lageder and lots of other folks make delicious Pinot Grigio but I'm not usually going to stick it in the cellar.

But I'm buying some bottles of Trimbach Pinot Gris Hommage de Jeanne 2000. Why? Because this is very special wine, rare indeed. To explain, this is the first bottling of this wine that the venerated Alsace house of Trimbach has produced. They've been around since 1626, so they've had some time to consider the issue. The Hommage de Jeanne 2000 is a single vineyard (Osterberg Vineyard), Grand Cru in status, and a brilliantly rich Pinot Gris.

You won't find the words Grand Cru on the label; Hubert Trimbach thinks the Grand Cru concept has been abused in Alsace and he refuses to participate until the quality of Grand Cru Alsace wine improves across the board, not just among the top producers. But this wine reflects what we ought to expect from Grand Cru wine: richness, intensity, earth, terroir, and above all, balance.

Why Hommage de Jeanne? Jeanne is Hubert's grandmother and she was 100 in the year 2000. The family had long wanted to offer some sort of tribute to her and the 2000 Osterberg provided a wine they felt was worthy of her name.

Eight years later, the wine has proved worthy of her memory – she passed in 2003. The family plans to make the wine again: in one hundred years, assuming the 2100 vintage is up to the standards of the 2000.

So while I'm putting this wine in my cellar because I think it's delicious and wonderful, I'm also doing so because it's rare. That too is a reason to put a wine in the cellar. You should do so too.

Cheers,

Doug Frost, MS MW
Master Sommelier & Master of Wine

I am an umami's boy

There are some politicians to whom the term “cipher” has been applied: they represent ill-defined figures upon whom a desperate public can project their desires. The notion of umami may be as poorly defined, at least in the culinary world.

While food science has long ago determined that umami is a form of glutamate attached to one or two proteins (know as IMP or GMP), umami has become variously known as “the smell of protein”, “the flavor of protein”, “the flavor of chicken soup”, of “the flavor of deliciousness.” Moreover, I have heard wine and culinary professionals insist that any rich flavor must a priori be umami-rich.

And umami’s existence, though identified in 1919 and a prominent component of flavored foods for half a century, is still in dispute by some recalcitrants. But like the little boy covering his face in fright, denying umami’s existence doesn’t make it go away.

In brief, umami is found in a variety of foods; that is in little dispute. It can be found in varying amounts in tomatoes, green beans, bivalves, shellfish, seaweed, mushrooms, many aged cheeses and in cooked meats, especially those that have been subjected to slow and long cooking.

What is still contentious is determining umami’s impact on other flavors (particularly sweetness and saltiness) and its impact upon wine. For instance, high amounts of umami can interact in somewhat unpleasant ways with high tannin wines, at least for many. But like all food experiences, the negative response to umami and tannin interaction is not universal. Many find the duo of tannin and umami gives a metallic taste, some find it only somewhat unpleasant and a significant percentage of people may have very little response at all.

This isn’t umami’s fault. There are no universal food or drink experiences, and therefore there are no universal experiences of food and drink in combination. You may like Brussels sprouts; I may find them annoying. I might enjoy liver and onions; you might be repulsed.

Certainly the combination of oysters and tannic red wine seems intuitively wrong. The high umami content of oysters is the culprit, and its kerwang effect on tannin explains the problem. But it’s important to accept that some people don’t find the two to be a bad match, though most people wouldn’t put them together.

And another complicating factor arises; salt can buffer tannin. Most chefs have noticed that salt buffers bitterness (chefs put salt on eggplant, don't they?); yet the saltiness of oysters is not enough to overcome the umami effect on red wine.

Conversely, aged and/or well-cooked meats have plenty of umami, but you don't hear anybody complaining about the metallic effect of cooked meats on red wines. Here again, there are other elements (including fats, proteins and salt) that provide plenty of counter-balance for red wine's tannins. And most find it a happy match.

Finally, there is the age old pairing of blue cheese (rife with umami) with Port, a powerfully tannic wine. My palate finds a younger Port to be less enjoyable with blue cheese; maybe there's too much tannin in the younger red to handle the cheese's umami, despite the intense saltiness of most blue cheeses (remember salt buffers tannins).

But Port is also sweet. And that seems to be the missing piece. A dry red wine is unpleasant with blue cheese; a powerful and sweet wine is fine.

If this seems head-spinningly complicated, well, that's hardly my fault. Foods and wines are comprised of hundreds if not thousands of myriad elements. But if there is a simplifying rule, it may be this: if both the food and the wine have a balance among the primary flavors of salt, sweet, bitter, sour and umami, they are likely to go well with just about any other well-balanced food or wine.

If not, then the food or the wine should not overwhelm its partner in any particular flavor category.

If all this makes you long for beer and chips, fret not. The business of food and wine matching is only complicated if you try to explain it. If you're simply trying to enjoy it, then drink and eat whatever you damn well please.

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence - Whoops!

So - Author Robin Goldstein was wondering what exactly it took for a restaurant to win the "coveted" Wine Spectator Award of Excellence...in order to find out he created a fake restaurant. I mean, when we say fake we are talking about a fake menu, fake website and best of all a fake wine list. Robin decided to take it a step further by making the "Reserve" wine list full of wines that Spectator had given its worst scores to over the last 20 years - like 67 point scores.

$250, a cover letter, completed application and a few months later Osteria L’Intrepido (the name of the fake venture) won a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence! See Robin's take on the whole situation here:

http://osterialintrepido.wordpress.com/

This is not the first time the Award of Excellence has come under fire as simply being a money center for the Spectator. In 2003 Amanda Hesser wrote a piece for the New York Times (click here to read the article) describing how 3,573 restaurants that applied for the award that year grossed Wine Spectator $625,275 (@ the then fee of $175 a pop).

So if in 2003 94% of all applicants won the award and this year a fake restaurant won the award how just plain awful must those places be that don't win? It pretty much makes the whole thing seem like a big joke...

Pink and Light in Provence

Van Gogh came here for the light, writing to his brother Theo: "Under the blue sky the orange, yellow and red splashes of the flowers take on an amazing brilliance and in the limpid air there is a something or other happier, more lovely than in the North."

Cezanne was born here, in the charming town of Aix-en-Provences. His love of the color in the trees and especially in the mountains was born of the clear, almost searching light in Provence. There are plenty of vineyards too; Van Gogh painted some of the stubby old vines, capturing one spot on the backside of Mas de la Dame, a great Provencal winery. Mas de la Dame makes a lot of lovely red wine and a vibrant pink wine.

They're not alone in making a pink wine. Most everyone in Provence makes pink wine; they have a lot of tourists and tourists all the world round like the same thing: pink. Not that there's anything wrong with it, as Jerry Seinfeld used to say. Pink is good and in the midst of a hot summer, pink (and cold) can be great.

This week, I was drinking pink wine nearly every day. Why? I'm in Provence, and it's the famous wine of the region. It certainly doesn't represent the best of what this beautiful and rugged seaside region can offer, but in the powerful and clarifying Provencal sun, it seems just right. At its best (and when youthful), it has brilliant color, more like a rose petal than the dullish orange-pink of so many other roses. Not that there's anything wrong with that either (thanks again, Jerry), but fresh Provencal rose is pretty to the eye.

The nose too should be fresh and fruit-laden: strawberries, raspberries, red cherries and currants are a pretty good approximation of Provencal rose's aromas. But being that we're talking about Provence, where rosemary bushes grow wild, and where the garrigue, a wealth of wild herbs and native plants, offer herbal, dusty notes to the wines, well, that note is present too. It makes for a hint of complexity smothered by a cold, pink, fruity, gratifying gush of juiciness. It's as if you're in a fascinating conversation about Schopenhauer with a beautiful woman, and then it turned out she just wants to make out.

Okay, maybe I got carried away. But Provence will do that to you: the sun is so bright, the air is so clear, the colors are so vibrant. Yes, van Gogh got carried away too, to rather unhappy effect. Not this Provencal visitor. For at least a few more summer days, I'm satisfied with pink wines. My version today is Provencal, but plenty of other places do tasty pink too: Italy, Spain, America and Argentina.

Cheers,
Doug Frost