October’s Vino Magnifico 2023

My schedule can be very erratic at times, causing me to be on the road, away from wine tastings. This past week I was fortunate enough to make V Paul’s once-a-month Vino Magnifico wine tasting. Vino Magnifico is different from the rest of our regularly scheduled tastings. For those who haven’t been V Paul’s requires a reservation. You arrive and sit down, either with friends or other adventurous wine tasters. Then wine is brought to you while you get brief description of what you are having. Basically the opposite of the other tastings.  There are pros and cons to the different wine tasting styles, which is a later topic.As every wine event I attend becomes a de-facto social experiment, Vino Magnifico is a fruitful affair! I often get to speak to wine tasters who don’t attend any of the other tastings, giving both sides a chance to share perspectives. I really enjoy watching others try new wine and then watching, and sometimes hearing their reaction. I then like to ask them why they liked, or didn’t like, a certain wine and I am always fascinated by their answers.Those answers are often all over the place as certain people like to try and sound more sophisticated than they really are instead of just being genuine and honest. The current result of my on going social wine tasting experiment is that you can 100% tell, on one hand, who is being genuine, and on the other, who wants to cover their insecurities with sophisticated nonsense.Well, at least everyone could agree on what was tonight’s Crowd Favorite: Villa Antinori Toscana Bianco 2021. This is a classic Porch Pounder, as certain people call it. It was refreshing with just the right amount of acid blended with citrus fruit notes and some back ground minerality. I was asked if it was too late in the season to buy this kind of wine since summer seems to finally be over. My response: “There is no season where you cannot buy any wine that you enjoy!”

Aragon’s monthly “Cru” tasting, 20 Oct

Why are wine tastings fun? Sounds like a silly question, but for me you get to taste stuff that you would probably never get to on your own, and the other folks at the tasting are fun people. Win win for me. So if your schedule doesn’t let you get to the regular tastings around town, try to do one of the monthly tastings, something I have said before, because they are worth it!Aragon has a tasting every Thursday. Five wines to taste for free. Yet on the third Thursday of the month they do a special tasting, a “Cru” tasting. It is $10 but there are 7-8 wines and the wines are of a next higher up quality. There are also some snacks too. So the Cru tasting is a great opportunity to try some of Aragon’s truly different, and unique selections. This Cru tasting gave us something rare, two Red wines tied for the Wine of Note. And the only reason that there were not three is because Daou “Pessimist” 2020 Red Blend was a previous WoN. All the tasters loved all three (tied as a Crowd Favorite), and all three were unique and very good! The two tied for WoN for this evening were Barton & Guestier French Bordeaux 2019, and Emporium Appassimento Rosso 2020 Italian blend. Two very different wines. The Bordeaux was an entry level to that complicated region but would be an outstanding wine to serve with a charcuterie board. Just enough fruit with just enough earthy bite to go with anything on that board! The Italian Appassimento, from the deep southern “heel” of the country is made by letting the grapes dry a little on the vine. Call it a quasi raisin, they are then picked and made into wine. Drink this with any pizza (pizza and wine have a special place in the universe) for a deeper pairing experience. Hope to see you at the next tasting.