2022 November Newsletter

I cannot believe that we are already at November! This year has flown by but it’s not over yet! I have awesome picks this month and next that will make all of the wine drinkers in your life happy. Whether you are stocking up for a holiday dinner, stocking your cellar or buying gifts we have something for that!
We are doing shortened hours on Thanksgiving day as well as Black Friday and there won’t be a wine tasting on Black Friday. We will be open Thanksgiving from 10am to 3pm and Friday from 10am to 8pm.
Don’t forget to vote and turn in your ballot soon! Vote for the issues you care about and please vote NO on Propositions 124, 125 and 126. They are a money grab by greedy corporations and will hurt small businesses and the community.

Cheers,
Sarah

 

Yalumba Y Series

Un-Chardonnay 2021

Reg. Price $17.99

Sale Price: $10.99

White Wine of the Month

While Australian wines as a whole have fared horribly the last decade or so Yalumba has escaped relatively unscathed. It could be that they label and package international varietals and not just Shiraz, it could be the uncomplicated nature of their packaging and appearance or the quality for the price. I think it is a combination of all three and while I have seen other Australian labels languish on the shelf before being shuffled to the close out shelf, Yalumba has always gone strong. They continue to make smart choices with their unoaked version of Chardonnay that is clearly labeled as such. Yalumba was founded by Sam Smith in 1849 and has been in the Hill-Smith family ever since, over 170 years. While the family definitely deserves a lot of the credit, I believe that the main reason for their success is their Chief Winemaker Louisa Rose. Louisa’s parents planted a vineyard in Yarra Yarra in the late 1970’s and she got fully hooked on winery life at the young age of 15. She joined Yalumba in 1992 and got promoted to Chief Winemaker in 2006 and during her tenure she has received countless awards including Best Winemaker in Australia in 2014. This Chardonnay has good texture and notes of golden apple, papaya and lemon zest with crisp acidity and no butteriness.

Domaine Magellan

Rouge Le Fruit Defendu 2021

Reg. Price $16.99

Sale Price: $11.99

Red Wine of the Month

I guess the theme for reds this month is winemakers making wine outside of the region that they’re known for! I always love writing about Burgundian winemakers who buy land and start projects outside of Burgundy. While that is technically not the case with the Folie Sauvage that is the case with Domaine Magellan. Domaine Magellan was conceived in 1998 by Bruno Lafon and his sister in law Sylvie Legros in the obscure Côtes de Thongue region of the Langeudoc. Bruno used to make wine in Burgundy and his brother Dominique is the winemaker at the famed estate Comtes Lafon in the Cotes de Beaune so wine making runs in his blood. Bruno and Sylvie bought a rundown estate in 1999 which they rehabilitated and planted to 13 different varietals. Tragically Sylvie passed away in October of 2018 which has led Bruno to reevaluate the direction of the estate and he wants to make wines with even more expression and background. The Rouge Le Fruit Defendu is delicious, fresh and quaffable and is light enough for Thanksgiving but it will also do well with pizza, stews, chicken Parmesan, charcuterie and any other occasion that calls for red wine. The wine is organic and a blend of 80% Cinsault and 20% Syrah that is done entirely in concrete. You know how I feel about southern French blends so get this before it’s gone!

Wit’s End

Vermentino 2021

Reg. Price $21.99

Sale Price: $16.99

The Vermentino from Sardinia in September went over quite well and now we are going to have an entirely different style from a place that isn’t known for Vermentino at all. Wit’s End is from Australia and a lot of Australian wineries these days are focusing on more restraint, cooler growing micro climates and different varietals. The critter wine craze pretty much decimated Australian wine sales much like Sideways did to Merlot but dedicated growers are fighting back and the wines speak for themselves. Wit’s End is in McLaren Vale, a cooler, more Mediterranean climate than a the Barossa Valley. Vermentino does incredibly well there because the weather mimics where it grows in Southern France and Italy. Wit’s End is a family owned winery and the Harvey family has owned it for six generations. The first vines were planted in 1897 and still bear fruit today! The winery is practicing organic and many of their vineyards are certified organic. The Vermentino is sourced from a single vineyard and picked early in the day to retain its acidity. The wine is fermented in steel vats and has lees stirring for texture and the finished wine honestly reminds me of dry Riesling! Subtle stone fruit notes, lemon zest, guava and a slight saline quality match the intense acidity and minerality well.

Domaine Armand Heitz

Folie Sauvage 2020

Reg. Price $27.99

Sale Price: $21.99

Domaine Armand Heitz is a big name in Burgundy and is known for producing high end Meursaults, Premier Cru whites and reds and generally just being a very serious producer from the Côte de Beaune. I have one of their Premier Cru Pommard bottlings on my shelf for a smidge over $100 for reference. I think that it one of the reasons I love this wine so much, aside from it being delicious. While this wine doesn’t bring the winemaker out of their home base, the Folie Sauvage is a drastically different style than what the estate typically produces. The Folie Sauvage is styled after passetoutgrain (passe-too-gran) which is a style of wine rapidly disappearing because they are blends of Pinot Noir and Gamay and in Burgundy Gamay is looked down upon. Passetoutgrains were the wines of the local, the underdog, the kick your shoes off after a long day of work wine, the crack a bottle with friends wine. While not labeled as a Passetoutgrain the Folie Sauvage is a blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay that comes from their vines in Burgundy and Beaujolais. The wine is made using 100% whole cluster so it is lively and easy to drink with notes of bright cherry, tomato leaf, dried herbs and raspberry. This is the best of both worlds; the best of Beaujolais joined with the beauty of Burgundy.

Maz Caz

Blanc 2021

Reg. Price $23.99

Sale Price: $16.99

I realize that I featured this wine in last November’s newsletter but can you blame me? It is a beautiful, textural white wine that is incredibly food friendly but works particularly good with Thanksgiving! Maz Caz wines are all organically farmed and made by an American born woman winemaker! Michele D’Aprix
fell in love with wine in the late 90’s and interviewed for a job at Dry Creek Cellars in Sonoma despite having no wine making experience. She later graduated from UC Davis with a degree in enology and viticulture and studied under French wine making consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt. She worked with Stéphane for four years before he introduced her to Pierre Bernault in 2008 who is the owner of Château Beauséjour in Bordeaux. He was looking for help at the winery and she was looking for a place that she could start making her own wine and it was a perfect fit. Michele now has many different projects in Bordeaux, Spain and the Costières de Nîmes in southern France. Maz Caz is her Costières de Nîmes project and the white is a blend of 51% Roussanne, 49% Grenache Blanc that only sees stainless steel. It has beautiful texture and complexity to balance out the bright, high toned citrus notes and minerality. Only 750 cases were made.

Ampeleia

“Un Litro” Rosso 2021

Reg. Price $28.99

Sale Price: $22.99

Ampeleia’s Un Litro has been one of my favorite Italian reds for about as long as I’ve been in the industry and every year when this comes out I rave about it. Since I am typically able to get such a small amount I run out quickly. Not this year! Other accounts didn’t take their allocations so I swooped in and got about 15 more cases than usual. Ampeleia is a project in the Maremma region of Tuscany between Elisabetta Foradori, entrepreneur Giovanni Podini and agronomist Thomas Widmann. Elisabetta Foradori is a phenomenal winemaker from Trentino in northern Italy who focuses on biodynamics and responsible viticulture and she brings that to Ampeleia. The Un Litro is a blend of Grenache, Mourvedre, Carignan, Sangiovese and Alicante Bouschet that is all hand harvested and vinified separately. About 10% of the wine is carbonic maceration so the wine is light, playful and quaffable. It is aged 6 months in cement vats and only about 13,500 cases are made each year. The finished wine is bursting with notes of fresh cranberries, sour cherry, pomegranate and dried herbs. This is the ultimate Thanksgiving wine so get it before it’s gone!

I can’t wait to explore these wines and more with you!
Pop into the store for all of your beverage needs and don’t forget about our in store tastings!

Beer Tasting Thursday 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Wine Tasting Friday 4 pm to 7 pm