Some Reserve Wines

Posted on December 16, 2017 by thewineraconteur

I just opened up my new carton of wines from “A Taste of Monterey” which is my wine club that we have belonged to for years. We opted for the Private Reserve Club which delivers three bottles of wine four times a year. Our thoughts were that we would get smaller boutique type wines that would not make it to Michigan otherwise and so far, we have been correct. I also have to say that we have been pleased with the selections and this shipment will make us smile in the future as well.


The first bottle is from a new winery to me, Comanche Cellars is a small winery that produces under a thousand cases of wine, and it is named after the horse that Michael Simon had when he was ten years old, and Comanche’s horse shoes are on the label. The bottle of Comanche Cellars Chevera Vineyard Pinot Noir 2015 comes from the Arroyo Seco AVA, and the vineyard is owned by Frank Stanek who named the vineyard after his two granddaughters Charlotte and Eva and the vineyard is high above the Arroyo Seco valley. The brochure claims that it has strong nose and flavors, as well as muscular tannins. The aging potential for this wine is six to seven years. There were one-hundred-thirty-four cases produced and the label even gives the count of the bottle, as was bottle 566 of 1675.


The second bottle was from a winery that I have had before and I am looking forward to this bottle. Joullian Vineyards is in the Carmel Valley and they grow multiple clones of each varietal at different elevations and soils to add extra nuance to their wines. The Joullian Family Reserve Syrah 2014 is from a one-acre parcel of the “Estrella River” clone grown at the highest elevation of the vineyard. The wine was aged for thirteen months in Center of France thin-staved barrels and racked every three months, it was then bottled unrefined and unfiltered, so it will probably require decanting when it is opened. There were one-hundred-ninety-nine cases produced and the aging potential is seven to eight years.


The last bottle was also from a new winery that was established in 2015 by a band of artists, craftspeople, and lovers of life brought their wandering imaginations to a piece of land in Carmel, California. They named this location Folktale Winery and Vineyards. The Folktale Arroyo Seco Chardonnay 2015 has a whimsical label truthful to the image of the winery. The wine began in a vat and then was aged for six months in French Oak of which twenty percent was new. The wine is described as creamy with mineral notes drawing from the Le Mistral Vineyard on their estate. This wine has the largest production of the three wines that I received at just under a thousand cases, and the aging potential is claimed for five to six years, though I hardly ever have a Chardonnay that long in the house. There will be three more wines that I will look forward to having in the forthcoming years.

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Hiding Out

Posted on December 14, 2017 by thewineraconteur

For some odd reason some people find me shy, while most would describe me as gregarious. The other night, I think the first would be a better fit. It was the first Friday night in December and tradition holds that my Bride was having her annual Lady’s Christmas Party. This little party has been going on since before we met, and even though she frets about all the minor little things, it always ends up being a nice party. They do all sorts of things like games, hopes and inspirations, group photos and a gift exchange. I am wise enough to realize that it is time for me to be a docile church mouse and hide in my office, until it is all over. Even though, I probably know everyone there, I just don’t fit in, and I can accept that feeling one night a year.


I hide in my office and kind of keep the door slightly closed, because we are not the best at filing and getting things put away, so that door is usually shut for any event at the house. I usually wait until I can hear that most of the guests have arrived, because that is my cue to go downstairs, say a group “hello” and fill up a couple of plates of food and go back into exile. The food part is my excursion into the unknown. All of the women bring a platter of food, a type of “pot-luck” affair, and even though I don’t like to generalize, women tend to like appetizers and finger-food, as opposed to stick on the ribs dishes. So, each year, I maneuver around salads and casseroles, foraging for enough to hold me, until the morning. I mean it would be in bad taste to order a delivered pizza. I normally can make a meal on a platter of shrimp cocktails, little meatballs, charcuterie and cheese, chicken wings and some of the best deviled eggs, year after year the winner, but it would be tacky to take the whole platter upstairs with me.


Man does live by bread alone, and I have to say that most women don’t either. The table that is set up in the library had multiple bottles of wine open, with adjacent wine glasses, and those little glass jewelry charms that one can put on the stem to identify the glass that you are using. When I am home, I tend to always use the same wine glass, and Lord knows that I am a creature of habit. I looked at the assortment of wines that were opened and there was a couple of popular sweet wines of Moscato and Riesling. There were also a couple that I recognize would be nice to write about, as they were not expensive, but different, and popular priced. The first wine that I tried was Josh Cellars Chardonnay 2016, a California Chardonnay from a winery that was founded in 2007 and a self-described negocient brand, as they have no vineyards. The fruit was harvested with a blend of Mendocino and Monterey county grapes. The winery was founded by Joseph Carr and named for his father who was a volunteer fireman, and the winery is dedicated to raising funds for assorted volunteer firefighter organizations. This wine is under the umbrella of the much larger Deutsch Family Wines and Spirits group. The wine was a good Chardonnay and very easy to drink, especially with the assortment of foods that I was nibbling on. The other wine that I tried and from the label art, was one that I had my doubts about, but I was game for trying. The Cherry Tart Pinot Noir 2012 was from Jason Woodbridge who also makes a single vineyard Pinot Noir called Cherry Pie Wines. He calls this wine a “multi-single vineyard blend.” The fruit came from single vineyards in Sonoma, Monterey and Santa Barbara counties and aged in French oak. While not stellar, it had a nice flavor from a very finicky grape and like I said, it was affordable and good for a crowd. I was able to hide most of the night, until I was summoned to take a group photo, and all the woman crowded around the dining room table and I took a couple of shots, to make sure that my Bride could find one that she approved of, since the very next morning she took all of the photos and had them developed so that she could make another page for her photo album devoted to her annual party.

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Parc

Posted on December 12, 2017 by thewineraconteur

I used to know Downtown Detroit perfectly, but I was in high school then, and it has changed so much for the better. While Ms. Yoga was in town, one of her girlfriends booked a reservation for nine at a new restaurant in Detroit called Parc. I was kind of the odd one there, as I was the only male at the table, but the lady that had booked it, told my Bride that I would love the restaurant, and she was right. The odd thing was, as we were driving around trying to find the restaurant, is that I felt like the proverbial farmer coming to the city for the first time. I could not place the restaurant, and neither could my Bride who used to work Downtown only a block or two from our destination. We finally found it and it made me feel old. The location was what I knew as Kennedy Square, the site of the old city hall and the park was named after John F. Kennedy who had delivered a speech near there when he was running for the presidency. The name clicked for me, the structure was the pedestrian entrance to the parking structure that was located under the square. Parc was for “park.”


We had a seven o’clock reservation on a Sunday night and the restaurant was packed, which was a great sight for me, remembering the ghost town that Detroit had become for years after I had graduated. The huge Christmas tree was lit, and there was an ice arena for skaters either at the square or the adjacent Campus Martius, as I was losing my grasp of the area, as it had changed so much. There was only a short wait for our table and I got a chance to view this spacious, but cozy restaurant with a nice bar in the center. There is no way that I could relay all nine dishes that were ordered, as my Bride and I were at the end of the table and Ms. Yoga was at the other end, so I will only discuss our meal. My Bride had the Organic Scottish Salmon with crispy skin, Israeli Couscous, grilled rappini, curried carrot puree and yogurt. I had the eight-ounce Creekstone Farms Filet, dry-aged, with Marsala Veal Jus, roasted potatoes with an onion and pepper ragout. We also shared a side of Wild and Local Mushrooms done in white wine and herbs. After dinner we all shared a regional and holiday themed Baked Alaska with green apples and pumpkin mousse that was flamed with an apple-jack brandy.


Parc took advantage of the former parking structure that they were in, because the wine cellar was two stories below in part of the old parking garage which I am sure was all reinforced concrete. The restaurant carries twenty-five-hundred bottles of wine, of which there were three-hundred different red wines and one-hundred-sixty different white wines. On the wine list, the last page was the Unicorn List, which featured the likes of Napa wines like Scarecrow, Bond, Tusk, Harlan Estate and Screaming Eagle while the French listings had two different DRC wines, Chateau Haut-Brion, Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau Margaux. While I was tempted, I did want to be married and alive the next day, so I only read the list. I had actually ordered a Beaujolais Cru for the two of us, the restaurant was out and the manager brought a Beaujolais-Villages as his suggestion, and I have to say, it was the first time that I had ever had a lower wine suggested, instead of trying to up-charge the bill. I declined his offer and ordered another Beaujolais Cru. It was the Thanksgiving weekend and we did not have any Beaujolais-Nouveau, so I was in the mood and prayed that my Bride would enjoy a different wine for the evening. We had a bottle of Pierre-Marie Chemmette Domaine du Vissoux Brouilly Pierreux 2014. The wine was called Pierreux because of the fine stone gravel that this small 1.5-hectare lot at the base of Mont Brouilly had as soil for their sixty-year old vines. This Gamay wine was aged for six months in old oak tuns and it was a delightful wine that my Bride enjoyed with her salmon and it work very easily with my filet. All in all, it was a wonderful evening and a great meal, and the ladies were already making plans to have another dinner in the future.

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A Little Game

Posted on December 10, 2017 by thewineraconteur

While Ms. Yoga was staying at our home she had contacted some of her other friends and they ended up going to see a little football game at The Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan during the Thanksgiving weekend. Some of you may not know this, but The Big House is the largest stadium in the United States and is in the top fifty for the world and it is where the University of Michigan has their home games. So, when it is game day there, it is quite a festive day, at least until the outcome of the game is decided and that weekend was one of the classic rivalries in the world of collegiate football. It was a girls outing for the day, which is fine as I really don’t follow sports; I don’t mind playing football, baseball or even golf, I just cannot sit and watch a game. As for the other sports I really don’t follow them at all, or even attempt to play them, as to my eyes, the games just appear to be some form of organized chaos. Though I have to admit that the college athletes play to their full potential, so that they may earn the multi-million-dollar contracts in the professional arena.


Ann Arbor is a city was laid out to be totally to be in grid lock when there is no traffic, so when there is a game, there is no chance to drive unless one likes to have white knuckles. The ladies all decided to meet at Weber’s on the far side of the city from our home and use their shuttle service to go to the game, which made perfect sense to me. Weber’s was founded in 1937 and still in the same family and besides being a restaurant, they also have a hotel and a venue for weddings and other occasions. The ladies all met and went to the Bloody Mary bar to have some libations and get situated, because nowadays they cannot even take a purse into the stadium, which negates the old sports-fan necessity of a hip-flask to ward off the cold weather. After the game, they took the shuttle service back to Webber’s and had a bite to eat in the casual tavern there called The Habitat, instead of dining in the main restaurant. My Bride had a couple of fancy sliders. One was pulled-pork with Cole slaw and the other was blackened salmon with caper aioli, lettuce and tomatoes.


I have to admit that I may have to terminate the employ of Ms. Yoga and my Bride as neither of them took a photograph of the wine that they were having. Alright, I won´t terminate them, I will just cut their salaries down fifty percent, so they will still be making the same salary as I figure. I like to photograph the actual bottle, but this time you will have to bear with me, as I had to get a label from the internet, which goes against the grain of my reporting. Though Ms. Yoga did send a photograph of The Big House which I edited to keep her anonymous. They were enjoying the charms of Chalk Hill Estates Chardonnay 2016 which is in Sonoma County and the wines carry the Chalk Hill AVA. The wine is aged for eleven months in French Oak, of which almost half is new. My Bride and Ms. Yoga both enjoyed it and I think that they use even less descriptors than I do. Chalk Hill Estates is part of the much larger Foley Family Wines group. As for that little game that they watched, let us just say that for this year, the usual ¨speeding¨ tickets that are earmarked for Michigan licensed plated automobiles driving through Ohio may get a reprieve.

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#CabFrancDay

Posted on December 8, 2017 by thewineraconteur

That title may look rather bizarre for an old curmudgeon like me. I mean the symbol # for me meant either a number or pounds in weight all of my life, but through my wine blogging journey I have now discovered Instagram and Twitter. Be patient with me, because when it comes to using these iPhones I think that I possess all thumbs, and telephones were something that was attached to a wire leading to a wall or they were wall mounted with a curly cord that always stayed tangled. I was fortunate that when I was a child we actually had a single-family phone number that I can still remember to this day and it had an area exchange for the first two digits and to this day I can not remember the number to my own cell phone.


This is all a preamble to a night on Twitter called #CabFrancDay and Twitter is a modern-day convenience or inconvenience where one can post messages under a certain character count and for a fellow like me that rambles, it is not easy. Lori from Dracaena Wines was the main instigator for creating Cabernet Franc Day to publicize this fine varietal that is finally being accepted on its own. Today’s wine bloggers have it so much easier to learn about wines, than I did back in the dark ages when one had to buy books and hopefully find a wine merchant that was knowledgeable. I am more Twentieth Century, but I may eventually enter the Twenty-first Century. I had to message another blogger that I respect for the simple instructions on how to go about joining into the festivities of this two-hour love fest about Cabernet Franc wines. My first inclination was to open a bottle of Dracaena Cabernet Franc that I had purchased and sent to my daughter’s house in Las Vegas last year before I went to visit the kids and the grandchildren. It appeared to me that Dracaena was going to be the wine of choice from others, so I had to decide on another wine, and we had just had an old-world Cabernet Franc as one of our wines for Thanksgiving. I think that I drove my Bride crazy, but she was game for a glass of this wonderful grape.


I went into the cellar and found something interesting that I thought would be different from what most of the others were going to be touting, and I was right. So, after chilling the wine a bit, I took a photo of the bottle and a glass to show the rich color and I posted it at the beginning of the two hours. I also made sure that I poured my Bride some of it to enjoy as well. It brought back some happy memories of a trip that we had made just to do wine tastings and some fine dining in the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario, Canada. The wine was Jackson-Triggs Grand Reserve Cabernet Franc Icewine 2014 with the Niagara Peninsula VQA. This wine was made using grapes that had naturally frozen on the vines when the temperature drops below -10°C and the juice is gently extracted, because of the concentrated sugar in the grapes. The wine was sublime and very silky. I figured that because I had posted so early my wine selection that it would be lost in the crowd of other posters, but people actually noticed it, and one even asked if it tasted like strawberries. Now everyone has gotten used to the fact that I tend not to use descriptors, but I responded that I thought more like pomegranate, but I neglected to mention with the trademark spice that I enjoy with Cabernet Franc. I must say that the love fest was one of the fastest two hours that I have ever spent, and then I noticed that even the next day I had some notifications about my post, so I guess I wasn’t totally left out in the cold that evening, and afterwards I discovered that even my Bride enjoyed the wine, which I knew she would.

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Cab Franc Day

Posted on December 6, 2017 by thewineraconteur

For years I felt that I was the voice crying out in the wilderness, which is apropos, since my Armenian name translates to John the Baptist, I guess my Grandmother knew me, before I was born. Why do I say that I was the voice in the wilderness? I guess that is because I was enamored with Cabernet Franc years back and I tried to get others to try something new. I have also created a Cabernet Franc devotee with my Bride and I have not told her about the day and will surprise her this evening with something special. In the early days when finding good wines was the eternal quest, I discovered this grape. My wallet was not flush then and to be truthful, my wallet’s status has not changed. I have to applaud Lori and Michael of Dracaena Wines in Paso Robles for spearheading the movement to create Cabernet Franc Day.


In the early days, the most common wines that one could find in Michigan were Clarets and Cabernet Franc was one of the varietals used in blending that made the Bordeaux wines famous. I was even fortunate to discover some red wines from the Loire Valley, namely from Saumur and Chinon. I was even fortunate to have Chateau Ausone which is basically half Cabernet Franc, and I have had Chateau Cheval Blanc which is almost two-thirds Cabernet Franc, so some estates knew a good thing when they had it.


Lately the world has seemed to discover its merits as well. I have enjoyed wines from California, Ohio and even here in Michigan where it seems to be doing quite well. I have even discovered some wonderful Cabernet Franc wines made in the Niagara Region of Ontario, Canada. They have even made some wonderful Ice Wines and I think that is what I may open tonight to celebrate. I hope everyone has the chance to open up a bottle of Cabernet Franc as well.

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Black Friday

Posted on December 4, 2017 by thewineraconteur

The common story that is related about Black Friday is it is the first day of the year that the major department stores show a profit, after all the shenanigans that they play for the first eleven months of the year. I have just about spent my entire career working for independent clothiers, so every day is important and Black Friday is just another day on the calendar. Black Friday has kind of morphed into this crazy day when people feel that they have to shop and it has disrupted the family day known as Thanksgiving. I guess it is because I can remember Blue Laws and days when families actually spend the day together, but retail is no longer the genteel industry that it once was. Thankfully for us, our shopping is done by Thanksgiving Day and we live like paupers to pay off all of the bills in December, so that we can get away in January.


I worked on Black Friday for part of the day and when I got home, it was almost like a repeat of the day before, except that most of the revelers were tired from the extended hours of shopping. The majority of the guests were here the day before, but there were some new faces to come and eat the left-overs, so that nobody would have to cook. We also had Ms. Yoga who came in that day to celebrate the weekend with us and it was her voice that greeted me first when I came in the front door. There was still plenty of food from the day before and I am sure that the dinner was a joyous respite from the travails of shopping at the malls. By the time I got there, they had all eaten and were just commiserating about the day’s adventures.


The dinner was perhaps a repeat, but there were new wines opened and poured. Two of the wines that were featured came from Sonoma County and it appears that they were appreciated. The first wine was from Martin Ray Vineyard and Winery, their 2016 Chardonnay. This was an easy drinking Chardonnay that was a blend of fruits harvested from Russian River, Sonoma Valley and Carneros. The wine was aged for a couple of months in French Oak, of which thirty-five percent were new and the balance were neutral to allow the fruit to shine. The other wine was one that I originally knew when it was made in Napa Valley and now it is produced in Sonoma. The Duckhorn Vineyards Decoy Pinot Noir 2015 was a good serviceable wine, but it is well made large production wine. It was aged for eight months in French Oak of which thirty percent was new. It was a nice dinner and there was not the urgency to leave like the night before and everyone was just savoring the meal and the rest.

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Reds for Thanksgiving

Posted on December 2, 2017 by thewineraconteur

As the race to get everything done for the Thanksgiving dinner, there is always the Joker in the deck. After getting the turkeys out of the roasters and getting most of the side dishes out of the oven, it was time to do the tenderloin. Our family from Kentucky brought up the largest tenderloin that I have ever seen. I mean it was almost large enough to feed the entire grouping with out the turkeys. My Bride’s Sister had marinated the tenderloin before bringing it to the house in a massive bag, that a turkey could have fit in, as I am trying to give you a visual of the size. Most of the crowd vacated the confines of the kitchen to allow us more room. The Chef and the Sous-chef and me, the carver.


The meat was so long and thick that the broiler was not doing it justice, we were afraid that it might char the outer without getting any real reading from the meat thermometer. My Sister-in-Law suggested that we get a Sous-vide system, because she has had great results from hers and she thought it would be a great item for us. Since we didn’t have the system, the common consensus was that I should butterfly the tenderloin. Now before you all start grimacing and questioning our sanity, after cutting the meat that way, it was still thicker than the average tenderloin that we make at the house. So, the two tenderloins cooked perfectly to a medium-rare consistency, with some rare slices for those carnivores that prefer it that way. The meat finished by the time the turkeys were carved and plated and dinner went off perfectly, and major kudos to the Chef and Sous-chef. With that many people for dinner, all of the platters of food were placed on the island in the kitchen, and everyone grabbed a plate and made their dinner plate and found a seat somewhere to eat. After everyone had seconds and some had thirds, the island was cleared and all the desserts were brought out, including a birthday cake for the November honorees. I was so full, that I didn’t even think about pairing wines with dessert.


With the many wines that were opened for the evening, we eventually got to some red wines. I never know what will be opened until the moment arises and I guess that is the beauty of having a cellar. Two of the reds that we opened, were the wines that she bought here during her last visit when I took her to a special wine shop and she was eager to try those wines. The two wines that she chose for the evening were rather unique and I think she must have been listening to her sister gush a bit about Cabernet Franc. Thierry Germain Domaine des Roches Neuves Les Memoires Saumur Champigny 2015. Thierry Germain was originally from Bordeaux, but he has found a new life in the Loire Valley. While Cabernet Franc is one of the grapes used in Bordeaux it shines in Saumur de Champigny and the winery is bio-dynamic and they only use used oak barrels. Les Memoires is from a separate vineyard plot that was first planted with Cabernet Franc in 1904 near Dampierre, so the vines are quite mature. The wine is fermented for ten to fifteen days, before it is aged for twelve months in oak and then it is bottled and rests for an additional six months before it is sold. The other wine that she really wanted to try was Domaine Sylvain Langoureau Chassagne-Montrachet “Les Voillenots Dessous” 2015 fit the bill nicely. A nice affordable Red Burgundy. Domaine Sylvain Langoureau is a husband and wife team that are making wines in one of the most famous wine regions in the world and of course the French call them garagiste, but I think Le Pin was also considered that in the beginning. This is a couple who are completely hands on, and all the work is by their own toil and they are working with one of the most finicky grapes and Pinot Noir is the grape of Burgundy for red wines. Les Voillenots is another lieux-dits site or locality that some consider should get official recognition in Chassagne-Montrachet, but the wheels turn very slowly for change in that part of the world. While there were other reds for the evening these two had the most interest and they were wonderful, just I thought a bit young, but they worked wonderfully. There was still so much food, that an invitation was proffered that everyone return the next night for left-overs, because of course most of them were going out shopping on Black Friday.

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Anyone for Whites?

Posted on November 30, 2017 by thewineraconteur

There must be an unwritten rule about not being punctual for holiday dinners and after all of these years, you would think that we should expect it. As the house slowly filled up with the Thanksgiving guests, you know that the kitchen became more and more the focal point. As I was waiting to begin carving the turkeys, I was also delegated to get dishes put aside in some semblance of order. Thankfully the day was chilly enough that I could use a table out in the garage to store some of the dishes that needed to be chilled, as we were slowly maxing out the two refrigerators and the chest freezer as well. There was also the yo-yo concept of the toaster oven, first it went down to the basement and then it reappeared. I also could not tell the Master Chef from the Sous-Chef, but as long as they figured it out, I was fine, just trying to control the temperature in the kitchen with opening and closing a window, to make everyone happy.


As the turkeys were done, the humongous beef tenderloin had to be taken from the marinade and placed in the broiler. As I waited for the turkeys to set a while, before carving, I made sure the knife was sharp and that I had plenty of room. Our grandson also called dibs on one of the legs, as I usually carve them as well, so when it was time to start carving, I sliced off one leg and thigh and put it on a plate and told him, he may as well start eating that. Somehow our turkey and Thanksgiving dinner never look like a Norman Rockwell painting and I may not be the most adept carver, but I do get the slicing done and keep the meat looking edible. It is quite a lot of work, first removing the threads that keep the stuffing in place, removing the stuffing to be mixed with one pot of stuffing and not the other one, and keeping the platter lined up with white meat on one end and the dark meat on the other end. Of course, the best perk of being the carver, besides having a Shun knife is getting to try the different cuts of the turkey; you understand that I have to make sure that everything is cooked to perfection. After all of the appetizers and the taste testing of the meats, I really don’t need to put much more food on my plate as I am stuffed.


My other main duty for the evening was making sure that there was wine ready whenever a glass evaporated. On a busy day like this, I just keep a waiter’s corkscrew in my pocket, because some of the other styles are too bulky, especially when space can be at a premium. As I was plying my avocational trade, one of my Brother-in-Laws mentioned that he had never seen a waiter’s corkscrew being used, as he was more familiar with the two-lever corkscrew, which there are a few scattered around the house, but I am not really partial to the screw, so many seem to mangle corks, rather than gliding smoothly in, hence I have my favorite one in my pocket. There were several Chardonnays that were opened that afternoon including my Bride’s favorite go-to wine that I have written about many times. One of the wines that I opened, because when we bought it, we thought of the non-wine drinkers and they could find this wine very easy and accessible. On our last trip to Las Vegas to see the families there we stopped in Pahrump, Nevada and did a tasting at Sander Winery. Pahrump is known for having two of the four wineries in Nevada, but they are probably more famous for their Chicken Ranch and no, I did not even stop there for a photo-op. The Sanders Winery Chardonnay NV carries and American AVA designation. The fruit for this wine came from vineyards in Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara and was aged in Stainless Steel and Polyethylene vats. For a simple white wine, I still enjoyed the taste that afternoon as I did the first time I tried it at the winery. The other white wine of note that I opened was one that I had just recently had at a wine tasting here in town that I wrote about, and I was thrilled to try, because I have enjoyed every bottle of wine that I have tried from the winery. The one for the serious drinkers was Wrath Estate Winery Ex Anima Chardonnay 2014 from Monterey. The fruit came from their San Saba Vineyard just below the Santa Lucia Highlands demarcation. The wine spent four months on the lees in Stainless Steel and I totally enjoyed the wine at the tasting. The funny thing was, that at the tasting the majority of the participants did not enjoy this wine, but those that I had earmarked it for, did, so I guess my marketing to my target audience was on the money. Here I was already full and we were getting the red meat and the red wines ready.

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I Try

Posted on November 28, 2017 by thewineraconteur

Thanksgiving morning and the house was already a hive of activity. My Bride was preparing for some thirty people to come over for the holiday and I try to keep a low profile, until I am called for. She was concerned, because the largest turkey she could find was an eighteen-pound bird, so she bought an additional turkey breast as well. There was also concern because she had to make two batches of stuffing, because some didn’t want to have any stuffing that had been in the birds, which she normally mixes with the balance of the stuffing that she makes, so she made one complete pot of stuffing that was chaste. She also made her famous Caesar dressing without anchovies, because of some that were allergic to those tasty little fish. She was trying to get some of the dishes prepared early as there was a huge tenderloin to deal with as well, not to mention all of the sides that are needed for the meal.


Some of the guests actually showed up at the proper time suggested, as they were making their strategic battle plans for shopping on the next day. The table in the breakfast nook were covered with the advertisements from the papers, which is fine for them, as our shopping had already been finished, in fact the packages were already wrapped and bundled by families. The day before she had also mailed the cards with the newsletters and had even shipped the parcel for the Las Vegas families as well, she is very organized. If I had one complaint is that the newspaper which normally costs two dollars, charges five dollars for the Thanksgiving issue and I think that is outrageous, considering all the extra income the paper receives for the advertisements any ways. We tried to clear the table to place appetizers out for the punctual guests. We had a pâté that was just wonderful, as I was afraid that I would eat the entire plate along with mustards and cornichons. There were plenty of different cheeses set out, and for the aged white cheddar, we also had drizzled honey on the slices. My problem is that I can usually make my entire meal just from the munchies.


I tried to proselytize the concept of wine to those that usually say that our wines are too dry. I had filled one of the refrigerators with some wines that need chilling and I even put some wine that I thought would win over the nay-sayers. I opened up a bottle of Chateau Thivin Beaujolais Villages Rosé 2016. Chateau Thivin has been around for about six-hundred years and is in the heart of Brouilly in the Beaujolais region. This wine naturally is made from Gamay Noir a Jus Blanc and after the grapes are macerated the juice is left with the skins for a natural coloring and this fruit is from vines averaging fifty years in age. After the one day, the juice is fermented in Stainless Steel to maintain the fruit. It may have been the best Rosé I have had all year and they all agreed to try it, but to wine lovers it was great, but to those on fence, it just was still to dry. Our Daughter-in-Law brought a bottle of wine that was the hit of the early guests. She brought a bottle of Fenn Valley Vineyards Red Currant Wine NV. Fenn Valley Vineyards is from the west side of Michigan near Lake Michigan and they offer a wide range of wines not only made from grapes, but from other fruits as well, plus they are known for the charity events that they host from time to time. This winery in Fennville has a slogan “the lake effect everyone loves” playing off of the fact that the lake effect there in the winter brings extra snow-fall, but during the summer it allows a great climate for growing and harvesting grapes. The red currant that this wine was made from is a member of the gooseberry family and creates a sweeter wine that was a hit for the non-vinifera crowd.  I always think that today’s fruit wine drinker may become tomorrow’s wine drinker.   The Thanksgiving holiday was off to a great start.

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