East Hill Bottle shop 4 Oct 23
A Napa quality Cabernet Sauvignon without the Napa price.
Well, it’s finally Fall! Our first beautiful sunny day that comes with a high in the mid-70s is worth its own holiday! How should a wine lover celebrate such an occasion? With a glass of “big, bold” red wine of course. Oh, you don’t have any because you have been drinking whites and light reds all summer. Well here’s a quick and easy cure.But before we discuss that solution a quick disclaimer: GulfCoastWine does not get endorsed or receive anything from the wine venues and/or wines review or recommend. We haven’t addressed that in quite a while, so for all of our newer readers and as a reminder to our original followers; everything here is unbiased, and written without the use of AI. Seriously, we still research and write things, unlike some of the other local publications!So, back to the cure. This week’s Crowd Favorite at East Hill was Elberle’s 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles California. Paso Robles (Passing Oaks translated from Spanish) is not as overlooked as it used to be but still often plays the third seat to its cousins to the north, Sonoma and Napa. A benefit of this is Napa quality wine and a lower price, and this is a great example!This wine welcomes the nose with an aroma of fruit curing in the western dry air and hints of violet. Then the palate is greeted with the “big and bold” deep and dark jamey plum, black cherry, circling cassis, medium tannins, juicy acidity, finishing with a little chocolate and cedar. It’s the red wine experience that you have been waiting for, since you have been depriving yourself of “big and bold” reds during our hot summer months like a monk fasting for a higher calling! Well, at least that’s what I have been told it feels like. I drink these type of red wines all year.A California red that is as good as any mainstream Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa at an affordable price. Hard to beat! So for all of you coming out of your hot season red wine hiatus, welcome back. And for the rest of us; enjoy our Wine America!
Two Fun Birthdays with Wine
Picking wines for two great events was as fun as drinking them!
“Where did you find this?” “How did you know they would go well together?” “Where can I buy this?!?”
Those were the three questions I got repeatedly at a big birthday Wine and Food event I put together Saturday night for 40 people.
“Perfect.” “Is there more?”
Those were the top two phrases that were said last night at birthday Wine Dinner #2 that I was privileged enough to be part of. The birthday girl for this dinner is one of the most highly respected wine enthusiasts in our region, so like any die hard wine lover she had firm guidance of what wine she wanted.
The twist for both birthday parties was that they were both surprises.
The first party involved a lot more people than the second and many of them were just beginning their wine journey. Three or four only drank beer. It’s okay, I [over] planned for that. If anyone wants some cold beer please let me know, I will give it away! Anyway, so my wine choices for the first party had to run the gamut of wine, beginners to the experienced wine connoisseur and pair with all of the food. Sadly I was so busy I didn’t get any pictures of the ten different wines I had chosen. They were all empty and in the recycling by the time I got back to them! It was a GOOD time!
Party 2 gave me a unique opportunity to “surprise” my dear friend, who had no idea I was involved. She had given wine directions to her husband, who is a wine connoisseur in his own right, to pick two or three bottles for just the two of them. But we had 14 more people coming, so we needed several more bottles than just two or three she had requested! Yet her direction gave us a blueprint. We included the three bottles that she had requested, as part of the ruse, and then got to work picking the rest needed for the birthday dinner.
Simplicity is key most times. This was no exception. We needed two “big” wines, a white and a red. Our white wine pick was Fulldraw 2020 by Drift from Paso Robles; 80% Clairette Blanche, and 20% Grenache Blanc. The easiest way to explain this wine was that it could do, and did do, just about everything you want out of a white wine! Wow! The red pick was Shafer’s 2010 Relentless from Napa; 96% Syrah, 4% Petite Sirah. Drinking this red was the equivalent to calling in an air strike using a MOAB. The MOAB (GBU-43/B for my military folks) is the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, the biggest non-nuclear weapon in the US Arsenal. Simply put, it [the wine] could not miss! It was “Perfect” with everything that came from the kitchen!
I have to thank my amazing friends for helping me with these events! Catering for party 1 was done by Kingfisher Restaurant with amazing desert fruit bowls from Bear Fruit Essentials, and everyone LOVED all of it! Party 2 was held at Union Public House in their new restaurant. The staff was excellent and the food fantastic!
If you are interested in doing a fun wine event please reach out to us and GulfCoastWine will be happy to give you a wine experience that you will not forget!
Food, wine, and acid. Aragon’s Cru tasting, 19 Jan
A battle of the Cabs, and food decided the outcome.
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.