WINO 101

Happy Holidays Friends and Wine Lovers!

T’was the week before Christmas, and all through the malls.
We’re sick to death of the 8th rendition of “Deck the Halls.”

The credit cards are maxed, and the car’s just been towed,
For parking in the designated Store Christmas Santa zone.

The list’s almost finished, and frazzled are nerves,
of buying some gifts and tasty snacks to serve.

A ball for little Mojo and a basket for Lu,
And I’ve got a whole lot of wine here for you.

The cookies are calling from that little metal tin.
What better to go with a nice glass of Zin?

A bottle of bubbly just might do the trick,
For putting the jolly back into St. Nick.

Okay, so that’s not the best. Perhaps rhyming couplets a la “Night Before Christmas” just isn’t my thing. But wine is! Be here Friday, December 19th for the last Friday Flight of the year! And it’s a Barrage of Bubblies!

Since we all need sparklers for the miscelaneous celebrations through the end of the year, I’ll be serving up a good number of them! Considering that not everyone has a taste for Champagne, I have a lineup of alternative bubblies as well!

So Friday, December the 19th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Barrage of Bubblies!
Gratien & Meyer NV Fleur de Lys Noir de Noir (Red Sparkler), France
Kesselstatt 1999 Dry Riesling Sekt, Germany
Secret House 1994 Northern Silk Brut, Oregon
Gruet NV Blanc de Noir, New Mexico
Ruggeri & Co NV Gold Label Prosecco Valdobbiadene, Italy

And the Extra 2:
Nicholas Fuillatte NV Brut Champagne, France
Duval-Leroy NV Cuvee Paris, France

A good deal at $10 for the first 5, and $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.

Also, be here Saturday for another ***BONUS TASTING*** of spiced mulled wine and Mead!

Hope to see you here!
Seize the Wine!
M

Next week is Christmas Vacation! Happy Hollidays!

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

The year end is rapidly closing in on us while we’re busy being distracted by shopping, company parties, and the new and final movie of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Return of the King, for which we’ve been paying some guy $10 an hour to wait in line for tickets for us. Okay that’s not entirely true. But we are more excited about this sequal than we were for Return of the Jedi, or Batman Returns. Yes, precious, we are. Certainly, we thinks it more exciting than the Return to the Blue Lagoon with as much action as Return of the Living Dead or Bruce Lee’s Return of the Dragon, but unfortunately without Bridget Fonda, like Point of No Return. And this week, while we wait for our writing inspirations to returns to us (we wants it back, precious!), we have “Return of the Spanish Reds for Mostly Under $10.”

Return to us, Carpe Vinum, this week for stellar flights of these way tasty reds, for it will be the last red wine tasting for 2003. (Next week is celebratory sparklers!)

So Friday, December the 12th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Return of the Spanish Reds for Mostly Under $10!
Penascal 2000 Tempranillo, Castilla y Leon
Agramont 2002 Old Vine Garnacha, Navarra
Monasterio 2002 Garnacha, Carinena
Enate 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot, Samontano
Capcanes 2001 Mas Donis, Montsant

And the Extra 2:
Vina Mayor 1999 Crianza, Ribera del Duero
Herencia Remondo 2000 La Montesa, Rioja

A good deal at $10 for the first 5, and $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.

Hope to see you here!
Seize the Wine!
M

Next week is Celebratory Sparklers!

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

We’re all full swing into the Holiday Season! I hope everyone who had put their lights up are ready to put them back up after having them blown back down during this torrential windstorm. (Or for me, replacing one of the storm windows that was ironically blown off during the storm.) Now, having found out about my “day-before-and-no-more” shopping strategy from the last email, people may have wondered why I wait until the last minute. I think it has to do with the music. Now, all these Holiday songs are fine and good and all in the spirit of things, but once you’ve heard 30 renditions of each at every store, and they’ve been repetitively eating at your brain and you wake up in a cold sweat at 3 in the morning singing “Winter Wonderland,” it creates a kind of shell-shock that makes shopping a dreaded once-a-year activity. My first year in retail was at one of the larger chain stores, many years ago (and I always said I would name my first ulcer after that year). It was the typical 10-hour Holiday-Season day for the typical 6-day Holiday-Season week. The music soundtrack was all of your Holiday favorites, and only about 1 hour and 15 minutes long. So, after a bit of math, that’s hearing each song 8 times a day, or about 192 times a month. Every time I hear any one of those particular songs again, I get a bit twitchy. (Just ask Laura. She’s seen it.) So in honor of that, and in the Holiday spirit, this week I’m doing Miscelaneous Italian Reds! Why? Because it has nothing to do with any of this Holiday stuff! And the music will be Jazz, provided once again, by the Pete Krebs and Jason Okamoto Jazz Manouche. Although you might request Pete and Jason to play one of your Holiday favorites, I might request that you not.

The reason why this tasting has been labeled “Miscelaneous” is because all these wines were selected as tasty gems that wouldn’t fit into any Italian regional-themed or varietal-themed tastings, and some could be considered “Italian Oddities” (see the Nero d’Avola/Shiraz). These bottles DO, however, follow the theme of the Italian-Reds-Under-$10-Or-Reasonably-Thereabouts. We’ll call that a subtheme.

So Friday, December the 5th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Miscelaneous Italian Reds! (Under-$10-Or-Reasonably-Thereabouts)!
Mezzo Giorno 2001 Nero d’Avola/Shiraz, Sicilia
Argiolas  2001 Perdera, Isola dei Nuraghi
Albino Armani 2000 Foja Tonda, Vallagarina
Ambrosini Lorella 2001 Tabaro ’95, Val Di Cornia Suvereto
Filippo Gallino 2001 Barbera d’Alba, Roero

And the Extra 2:
Firriato 2000 Chiaramonte Nero d’Avola, Sicilia
Umberto Cesari 1998 Riserva, Sangiovese di Romagna

A good deal at $10 for the first 5, and $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.

Hope to see you here!
Seize the Wine!
M

Next week is a Miscellaneous Spanish selection!