My local wine shop, The Fine Wine Source, held a wine tasting at their restaurant Vertical Detroit and call it “Sip & Shop.” This is the second one that they have held and we have attended.  It was fun, because I could watch my Bride taste some of the wines that I may have tried earlier at the store without her.  The restaurant was rearranged so that there were tasting tables arranged throughout.  There were nine themes per table: Vertical Exclusives, Roberts & Rogers, Korbin Kameron, Champagne & Sparkling, Italian Selections, French Selections, California & Oregon Selections, South America & Other Europe, and Vignobles Sullivan. The entry fee was thirty dollars per person, and the price would be credited to one’s purchase of twelve bottles of wine.  I thought it was very reasonable and we showed up to make the most of the event.  As I looked around, I realized that the people attending were regulars of the restaurant as opposed to the regulars at the wine shop and that made sense. 

We went to the back of the restaurant, where the bar is and we started there.  We stopped first at the table that were Vertical Exclusives, and that is because between the wine shop and the restaurant, the allotment for the state was purchased.  We started out the festivities with Champagne Andre Clouet “No. 5” Brut Rosé NV.   Champagne Andre Clouet is a grower Champagne in the Grand Cru village of Bouzy and its wines are made exclusively from Pinot Noir on their eight-hectare estate on the famous chalk soils of Champagne.  Jean-Francois Clouet, a Bouzy native with a family history in the region before the Seventeenth Century.  1741 is the year that the foundation of house was built by Andre.  According to their website, “Bouzy Rouge” was created in 1770, by adding a few drops of red wine from Champagne to white wine to create a pink wine. They claim three hundred years later, everyone is still crazy for this Champagne.  This wine comes in different numbered editions.  The wine is blended: with seventy-five percent from 2018, eight percent from 2017, ten percent from 2015 and 2016, and seven percent Rouge de Bouzy 2018. The wine is a medium salmon-pink color with fine bubbles and offered notes of cherries, pomegranates, and brioche.  On the palate there are tones of strawberries, raspberries, and cherries with bright acidity and a fine mousse; ending with a finish of fruit, spice, and a light chalky terroir.

At the table designated as Vignobles Sullivan, while I was chatting with Michael Kasper who came up from Florida for the event as he had been at the wine dinner at Vertical Detroit along with the Directeur General Damien Landouar, the winemaker for Chateau Gaby and the umbrella wineries of Vignobles Sullivan.  My Bride wanted to refresh her memory and to see if we needed more (of course we did, along with the rosé) of the Augustine Bordeaux Blanc 2022 made by Chateau Auguste.   Chateau Auguste is a seventy-four-acre Bordeaux estate located in the Right Bank region of Entre-Deux-Mers, which means between two seas; the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers.  A triangular region of sand and gravel atop layers of limestone, originally planted by the Romans.  Chateau Auguste is owned by Vignobles Sullivan and under the guidance of winemaker Damien Landouar.  An organically made wine of ninety-five percent a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon and five percent Muscadelle.  This light straw-colored wine offered notes of white fruits and freshly cut grass.  On the palate there were tones of pears, peaches, and almonds in a well-balanced and very easy drinking wine with a nice medium count finish of crispness and terroir.