“Sunsets on Main”

Downtown Pensacola has some amazing spots to eat and drink! One of the original downtown wine tastings recently returned to our calendar. “Sunsets on Main” by So Gourmet (the upstairs of Bodacious Brew & Olive) offers 4-5 wines, Free, on Wednesday evenings.This week’s tasting featured a wine easy to overlook yet so unique; Mettler Vineyards Estate grown Albariño, from Lodi California.Lodi still does not have the name recognition that the likes of Napa, Sonoma, or even Paso Robles have, especially for a WHITE WINE! Yet to the wine enthusiast Lodi is never over looked!The Albariño grape is native to northern Portugal and Spain, where some magical expressions of the wine can be found. That area is extremely rocky, mountainous, and has large temperature variations. Lodi could not be more different; flat, segmentary soil, and lacking big temperature swings but with very hot summers. This is why Lodi is known for world class BIG Zinfandels.So what happens when you bring this northern Iberian grape down to the Central Valley of California? A basket of crisp apple, ripe pear, and melon, with hints of citrus and a touch of mineral acid.What a surprise! A great wine for our quickly approaching summer and pairs great with my Red Snapper tacos. Unique, all of the tasters liked it, can be had alone or with dinner; that equals a Wine of Note!

“I’m not a Sommelier.”

What makes wine seem so fancy to so many people? When I meet people new to wine, or new to wine tastings, and they find out that I “know wine” they almost always feel like they have to start will a disclaimer. I get it a lot when someone who I know introduces me to one of their guests or friends. It mostly sounds like; “This is Alex, he knows wine!” I have even been call a “wine expert.” I put the brakes on that comment real fast! There are very, VERY few, true wine experts out there, even though you can pay some money take a relatively simple test and get a “Certified Wine Expert” certificate. It’s true that I really enjoy wine, and that I know a lot about the wines I like, and the wines that I don’t like, and have some wine credentials. But the only people who should be fearful of me or my wine knowledge are wine snobs. I love taking them apart!But the other night I met a new fellow wine taster and during the introduction she felt the need to say the disclaimer of “I’m not a Sommelier.” I responded, “Me either!” I am not going to get into all of the differences here, but you don’t need to “know wine” to know what you like and to learn new wines. I love french fries, but I am not a potato farmer, and I definitely know what a good french fry is. I’ve been to several beer tastings, go to breweries, and I have never heard someone introduce themselves and include “But I am not a brew master.” So why is wine so different? Well, drink an IPA. It’s an IPA. Drink an amazing wine and it can be hard to even describe, infinitely more complex. That’s definitely part of it, but that doesn’t mean you have to know wine to enjoy wine, or to be able to find a wine that you will like. And you definitely don’t need to be a sommelier to talk about wine! Talking about wine is a good way to learn more about it. So stop being so worried about being judged, you’re not going to be. Come and have confidence that you will have a good time at a wine tasting. If you had come to this tasting we would have talked about tonight’s Crowd Favorite; where it was from, what an AVA is, the flavors we got while tasting. It was good. Hope to see you at the next one.

Napa Valley Day 2, Part 2 Château Montelena

What’s a good way to tell if you are a wine geek or not? A wine geek not only knows about the Judgement of Paris, but they can also explain it. A brief history refresher. Before 1976 wines from “The States” were not really taken seriously. Sure there were some good ones, but nothing compared to the likes of the best from Bordeaux or Burgundy. A blind tasting was arranged to test the “best” wines in the world at the time, which came from France, against some wines from Napa. There was a red category and a white category. A Napa wine won both categories, blowing up the wine world! It is THE reason people why when people hear “Napa” they think quality wine. The winner of the red category was a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. The winner of the white category was a 1973 Chardonnay from Château Montelena.

The 1976 Judgement of Paris has regained some popularity recently from the Netflix show “Somm 3.” Therefore a chance to visit either one of the two Napa Wineries that totally upturned the world of wine is worth taking! We were able to get into a tasting at Château Montelena on this visit, so we took the opportunity. You can look up the history of the Château on your own, but it is a beautiful estate. The tasting included their 2019 Chardonnay at $70 a bottle , their Estate Zinfandel at $45 (not sweet, nothing like most of the Zins from Lodi), a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon at $85, and finally their Estate Cabernet Sauvignon at $200 a bottle! The staff was knowledgeable and enthusiastic which was a pleasant surprise considering the tourist Mecca that Château Montelena is. A walk about the idyllic grounds and the Jade Lake concluded our wine pilgrimage. Was it worth it? That depends on what you are after. If you are after a piece of wine history and a fun experience, then yes! Hope to see everyone back at our local GulfCoastWine tastings soon.

Napa Valley Day 2, Part 1 Laura Michael Winery

Sometimes you have more success going solo. Other times it pays to be part of a team. My Napa wine adventures on day 1 were a solo affair. On day two I was able to take a few members of my team to enjoy an amazing wine experience. My first choice to begin their Napa wine journey was Laura Michael Winery, just outside the town of Calistoga.Calistoga sits at the northern end of Napa Valley. The valley here is less than two miles wide. Fires wreaked havoc in this area in 2020, so be weary of any Napa wine wearing a 2020 on its label. The Winery, owned by wife Laura and husband Michael specialize in Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Chardonnay, and a 50/50 Zinfandel Petite Sirah desert wine, which is my favorite. In a previous post I talked about how you can taste the business culture of a winery in their wine. How do they treat guests, conduct their tasting, etc. And again, do everything that you can to make reservations, but I am always interested in how a winery handles the ones that just show up. Michael and Laura are some of the nicest people in Napa, and will do their best to try and accommodate you. They are knowledgeable and just great people to share a glass of wine with! Laura Michael’s is the refreshing antithesis of the big, impersonal, touristy wineries that everyone thinks that they “must” visit in Napa. Thank you to Laura and Michael for a great visit!

Planning a visit to Napa Valley, California

Napa. The word, the location, has come to define “fine” wine from the United States. But what is Napa? It’s the main town (really a small city) at the southern end, the mouth, of the namesake’s Valley. Yet in the world of wine, Napa is Napa Valley, the 1st AVA (American Viticultural Area) in California, and the 2nd in the U.S. Then within Napa Valley (Just “Napa”for the rest of this article) there are 16 nested AVAs! According to the Napa Vintners association, Napa AVA is 122,735 acres, 612 recognized wineries with more than 400 vineyards! Ooofff, where to start?!The main thing that makes Napa so special, and the reason that there are 16 nested AVAs with the main Napa AVA, is the unbelievable diversity of “Terroir.” Terroir is everything, ground, climate, etc, that influences a grape by the time of harvest. To keep the geology simple; Napa sits between volcanic soil and ancient seabed soil, containing both. It sits at the confluence of hot winds blowing south and cool bay winds blowing north. Therefore there are hundreds of Terroir possibilities for grapes, so there can be large taste differences in Napa wine depending on where those grapes where grown.It can get complicated! With a little bit of knowledge you can begin to break Napa down and choose where to visit. I would break it down in this way: first; Valley grown grapes from the north, middle, and south. Second; mountain grown grapes. The Vaca Mountains on the east side of Napa Valley are volcanic. The Mayacamas Mountains on the west side are ancient sea bed, and form the boundary between Napa and Sonoma. Break down the mountain ranges the same way as the Valley; from north, to mid/central, to south. You could easily go from south to north, one direction is not better than the other.The biggest differences in Napa wine come from Valley grapes vs Mountain grapes. Next are the differences between grapes grown on the Vacas vs the Mayacamas. Finally, the differences in latitude (south to north or vice versa). Keeping it as simple as possible (because there are 16 different AVA’s), that’s three main wine tasting areas to plan a visit; the Valley, the Mayacamas, and the Vacas.SOOO, you could potentially do one of those three areas in one day, but only if you run and gun through your wineries, and with A LOT of planning! More realistically, I would plan at least two days for each of the three main areas, and that still might be pushing it. If you have only one day, DO SOME RESEARCH! You could do four wineries, with tasting at each, in one day, but it will be a FULL day, and you would need a DD, and bring a lunch! I would also highly recommend doing a Napa visit in the late winter/early spring, and during the week. The fall is fantastic, but very busy.So that is my recommendation on how to break down Napa for a wine trip. At a minimum, drive the entire valley, roughly 40 miles from top to bottom. Go up (or down) the Silverado Trail and then use Rt 121 to reverse course. Silverado Trail is the “original” road on the eastern side of the valley and Rt. 121 in on western side.Stay turned for next week where I will tell the stories of three Napa Wineries!Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Galentine’s Day, or at least cheers to enjoying a glass of good wine!

Old Vine Zinfandel, Harney Lane Winery

Most people only think Zinfandel when they hear or see Lodi in the wine world, and rightly so. A little geography. Lodi is in the Central Valley of California. You start to see vineyards a while before you get to town. The first time that I saw it, and how flat it was, I thought to myself “I cannot believe this is where my favorite Zinfandel comes from!” Yet certain grape varieties love it here.Something magical happens when a grape vine begins to reach “old.” It has to do with how deep the roots are. In a 50 year old vine, depending on variety, that could be 30 to 40 feet deep at that age. Old vine, in most of the world, means 50 years. At that point the vine can take in so much more minerals and better regulate its water.One of the best vintners of Old Vine Zinfandel is Harney Lane Winery. They have vines well into their 80s and some over 100! The family that still owns Harney Lane was part of the original experiment to grow grapes around Lodi. Time is the ultimate test when it comes to wine, and wines from here have been acing that test for generations. My first bottle of Old Vine Zin is in my bag. On to the next winery.

Food, wine, and acid. Aragon’s Cru tasting, 19 Jan

There are three types of wines. That is a huge statement but an accurate one. In the massive and complex world of wine there are food wines, drinking wines, and wines that can be both. A big reason for the three broad categories is the amount of acid in the wine, and how that acid hits your palate. From here it gets complicated as you get into tannin and alcohol levels, then dive deeper into the science of how humans taste wine.Let’s go to the part of how the acid hits your palate. Food. Specifically the proteins and fats in that food will drastically alter how that acid hits your palate. A “food” wine generally has a lot of acid and that acid is up front on the palate. If you are eating food, such as a typical charcuterie board, that acid will be mellowed by the fats and washed down by the proteins, marrying just right to give your palate a pleasant experience.There was a good charcuterie board at tonight’s tasting. The two Crowd Favorites came down to the fact of this: did you start eating on that board before tasting Frescolbaldi Terre More 2020, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc, Merlot and Syrah from Tuscany Italy? If you ate before, you had a good experience with that wine. Intense but with mellowed red berry and cedar. If you didn’t eat before then it was very acidic and unpleasant, and therefore you probably really enjoyed the next wine in the line up, which was the other Crowd Favorite, Serial Cabernet 2020 from Paso Robles California. This was a “drinking” wine but with the right choice, could be had with food. The strong meat flavors of the standard charcuterie board would knock out some of the deeper notes of red cherry and blackberry. Should you eat/partake in the standard wine snacks that are usually offered during a wine tasting? A great question for a future discussion.

East Hill Bottle Shop 4 January 2023

Everyone is aware how much the price of just about everything has gone up over the last two years. Yet every now and then you come across a pleasant surprise. The 2018 Farmstead Long Meadow Ranch, Anderson Valley Pinot Noir, from California, was a great surprise. The Pinot Noir grape is hard to grow mostly due to its thin skin. It is finicky and can be susceptible to many kinds of grape diseases. Therefore good Pinot Noirs are usually fairly expensive. To get a “cheap” bottle of Pinot Noir, something less than $40, sometimes involves shortcuts, whether in the vineyard or the barrel. But what if that vineyard has just the right terroir, and the vintner had the right level of skill? The result is a varietally correct Wine of Note, at only $13 a bottle! A nose of spice, light pepper and a mouth of strawberry and light raspberry with no off flavors. Truly a pleasant surprise!

East Hill Bottle Shop Tasting 23 Nov

The best way to buy wine that you will like is to taste it first. Sounds ridiculously obvious, but most people, maybe you, buy wine based on something else without ever tasting it. A catchy label and a biased wine score (do you have the same pallet as James Suckling, or the tasters at Wine Enthusiast? Maybe. But probably not!) round out the top two reasons, outside of price, that people pick an unfamiliar wine off of the shelf.We are very fortunate to have so many great and frequent wine tastings in the Pensacola area that there should be almost no reason to buy a wine that you haven’t tried first, just to find out later that 92 points by James Suckling doesn’t mean that you will like it.We had a tie for Crowd Favorite this evening at the East Hill Bottle Shop, and both are great picks for Thanksgiving, or that upcoming holiday party. The two were Dehesa Gago 2016, a Spanish Tempranillo; and Austin Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon. Both were easy drinking and would pair well with a holiday meal. Dehesa Gago, at $12 a bottle is a little more earthy. Austin (wine maker Austin Hope), at $23 a bottle, is a little more deeper in fruit, but not fruity. Which one should you get? Well, go to the tastings and find out for yourself.

Friday evening at the Bottle Shop, 15 April

Tonights wine lineup was all from the wine maker Marietta, based in California. The folks at Marietta are known for great blends. The line up presented by Max Rowe and the fine folks at the Bottle shop had a wine profile for almost everyone. It was definitely a great evening for comparing flavor profiles. If anyone has any questions about this lineup contact Max Rowe at m.rowe2688@gmail.com. Hope to see y’all at the next tasting.

Alex

March 30 Tasting Notes

• 12th Ave Bottle Shop tasting

• Pensacola, FL

• Wednesday, March 30, 2022

The evening started with a surprising bubbly. Gruet Sauvage Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine from New Mexico. It was mouth awakening, zingy but not tart, not too dry in the world of bubbly wine, surprising in a good way. At $23.99 a bottle this would be a great choice to celebrate any occasion, even the end of a hard day.

Chardonnay. It seems to be the white wine grape that either you order as "what do you have for white wine," or the discerning wine searcher's white wine of choice. Very little "middle" ground. Sometimes you need middle ground. That is why Willamette Valley Vineyards Chardonnay is so unique. Even with sitting in barrels of French Oak for 10 months, it was not oakey or woody, but still had that body and structure that the wine connoisseur looks for, well rounded flavor but not buttery. At $24.99, this Oregon Chardonnay would do very well with any of our local seafood, especially during an Easter lunch.

I love pizza, and a lot of red wines go well with pizza. Casa Silva's Carmenere goes GREAT with pizza. This Italian red will give you a full nose of amazing peppers, bell, jalapeno, even habanero, then satisfy your taste with pleasant red fruit. I would also drink this with a large plate of Indian food. For $14.99, this is a perfect addition to any spicey meal.

The last wine of the evening was a Cabernet Sauvingnon from Paso Robles California called Broadside. Even though it is a "Cab," it really is a blend, a very well done blend. Check out our "Resources" section on the percentages of grape rules in wine and how it gets names. So this "Cab" is 88% cabernet Sauvingnon blended with 12% Merlot. It had good dark berry fruit, easy tannins that didn't leave your tongue dry, and finished velvety smooth. Great to just drink, or have while you are cooking dinner, then finish while eating dinner. You rarely get that kind of experience from a Californian Cab for less than $30. Thats why at $13.99 it was the evening's winner.

Don't forget that with your $10 for the tasting you get $5 off any of the bottles in the tasting. So you could have gotten any of these bottles $5 cheaper than listed above.