Drink Pink / WBW #62: A Grape By Any Other Name (Artazuri Rosado)

“I’ll just finish the wine. It’s not a problem.”

That was me, last night. But we’ll get back to that in a minute.

It’s time for the monthly wine blogging activity Wine Blogging Wednesday. I’ve decided to mix it in with my own current initiative to Drink Pink.

The theme for this month’s WBW outing, hosted by Dale Cruse, is a grape by any other name. You see, grapes are the same the world over, but they have a lot of different names – often for the same grape. For instance, Primitivo and Zinfandel, Syrah and Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc and Fume Blanc, and so forth.

I happened to have a Spanish grenache sitting here for Drink Pink, and it happens to be labeled as a garnacha, so we’re in business.

Grenache, also called Garnacha, is one of the most widely planted red grape varietials, and is the most widely planted grape in Spain. Grenache is often found in Southern Rhône wines, which explains my fondness for it. I do love my Rhône. In fact, Grenache is often at least 80% of the blend of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Artazuri Rosado of Garnacha 2008, Bodegas Y Artazu, Navarra region
$10.99, Water Tower Fine Wines

The Artazuri rosé has this amazing bright color. It’s not really captured in the above photo, but it’s sort of the pink of my pinkest Playgirl Floribunda roses I planted outside our house, or the pinkest hibiscus flower. It’s pretty darn close to red, while still retaining all it’s pinkness.

On the nose there is a lot of flower and mineral, partnered by raspberry. Kevin commented that it was reminiscent of homemade raspberry pancake syrup.

It’s not a hefty rosé. Instead, it’s light and airy, calling out to be paired with seafood on a hot and sunny day. It’s filled with raspberries and some cherry and it goes down fast. Really fast. Kevin and I rarely finish an entire bottle of wine on the first night anymore, but I handily polished this one off last night (thus the quote at the top). As for Kevin? He had a glass or so, and he admitted it was good. But it wasn’t his kind of wine – it didn’t tap into his inner pink as our previous rosé had. He likes his pink wines to be less light and more heavy.

Our ratings:
Michelle  Kevin 

Thanks to Dale for hosting this month’s adventure!

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A Kentucky Wine Weekend That’s Close to Home

This weekend, which will hopefully be a lovely autumn weekend, you can experience a lot of Kentucky wine and you won't have to go much further than Covington and Camp Springs. 

Kentucky grapes? Yes, actually. Those tobacco fields aren't getting
much use now that smoking is being banned in many states and causing
cancer in general. But they do provide the perfect soil for growing
grapes. I admit, Kentucky wineries are still young and growing, but you
might be surprised about the quality of many of the wines.

Saturday

On Saturday, you can partake in the Northern Kentucky Wine Festival right down on Mainstrasse in Covington. The festival runs from 2-10 pm on October 17. Your $10
admission includes a souvenir wine glass and 4 tastings, although you
can buy additional tasting tickets for $1 each or 6/$5.If you find a
wine you like, you can purchase it by the bottle or by the case.

The N
Ky Wine Festival is all Kentucky wines, but not all of Kentucky's
wineries. Some of our favorites in the past have included Black Barn, Ashwood
Cellars, Elk Creek Vineyards,
Lover's Leap, Wildside Winery/Wildside Vines, and Chrisman Mill.

The wine festival isn't just wine though. It's an opportunity to try some tasty Kentucky Proud
snacks. I tend to buy a lot of these products at Remke; I'm a big Ky
Proud supporter because the food is just so good. In addition to food,
there will also be crafts such as ceramics, rustic furniture, and
jewelry. The last couple of years, these vendors were mixed in well with the wineries,
giving you a chance to enjoy your wine and keeping the wine tables from
being too crowded. I usually buy jewelry from several of the vendors.

Sunday

On Sunday, you can enjoy the 3rd Annual Camp Springs Herbst Tour. (Herbst meaning Autumn, apparently.) This is a self-guided tour. You'll pick up a map and start driving, and probably be surprised not only by how beautiful it all is, but by just how close our fair city is to the country.

You'll visit three working farms, six stone houses, a horse farm and equestrian center, four churches, artist studios & crafts, a daylily farm, plowing fields, a pumpkin patch, see draft horses and miniature Hereford cattle.  But the important things on that list are the two vineyards and wineries.

You'll get to visit the vineyard, farm, and tasting room of Stonebrook Winery. If you go, make sure you try their pomegranate wine. Additionally, you'll get to visit Camp Springs Vineyard, which is holding their grand opening the day of the Herbst Tour. You'll be the first ones to try their inaugural white, red, and fruit wine.

To get started on the tour, stop by the Camp Springs Firehouse and pick up your map. What a lovely way to spend a Sunday!

Featured Cincinnati Wine Events: Oct 10 – 16

It’s fall, and retailers know that you’re going to start thinking about the holidays soon. What does that mean for you? More tastings!

Last week I mentioned Water Tower Fine Wines in Mt Washington. I want to bring it up again only because I’m going to help out with the pouring this evening. It was packed last week, so they’re hoping for a great turnout again. I’m just there to pour – and learn. So come on out and say hello!

Thursday night is jam-packed with amazing option, but I want to point out a Party Source event that night: Bacon & Wine! No kidding! Six wines paired with interesting bacon from around the country. Bacon is a crazy popular meme anymore, so if you’re interested, make your reservation soon. Kevin & I will be out of town again (more on that next week), so you should really go in our place.

Please note that any tasting benefitting Breast Cancer Research/Awareness is highlighted with a pink ribbon.

Remember, all the recurring events, those dependable weekly tastings,
are displayed on our calendar. The one-time events are after the jump.

For information on what’s going on
in Dayton, you can refer to Mark’s blog at Uncorked.

Local Wine Tasting Event Calendar

Friday Interactive Wine Tasting Map

Saturday Interactive Wine Tasting Map

Read the rest of this entry »

Drink Pink: 2008 Belle Glos Pinot Noir Blanc

As part of my own little Drink Pink initiative, I dived into my first rosé of the month. I'll tell you right now, it will be hard for any other rosé to live up to this one. I apparently started at the top.

2008 Belle Glos Pinot Noir Blanc, Mendocino County, California
$18.99, Water Tower Fine Wines

Have you heard of Caymus? They're rather well known for their Cabernet. So well known, in fact, that in order to focus on some rather nice Pinot Noir, the winemaker had to open a separate winery. In 2001, that's how Belle Glos came to be. 

Belle Glos is distinctive for its wax-dipped bottles, a la Maker's Mark. The Pinot Noirs all have a dark red wax, but this rosé sports a brilliant pink. It's actually a gorgeous bottle. I had to have it as soon as I saw it in the store. (The wax has a pull tab, making it easy to remove from the top.)

The wine has a wonderful aroma of flowers and wild strawberries. You can see in the photo that the wine itself is almost a jewel-tone. The rosé is made from pinot noir, which is my favorite red grape.

I've never said this about a rosé before, but this is a sexy rosé. It makes sense, as pinot noir can be one of the most sensuous wines around, but rosé? My hats off to the winemaker. This has a lot of big dark berries and just a kiss of strawberry.

This isn't one of those light, prissy rosés; this wine has some heft to it. We drank it solo, but I bet it would also prove to be an excellent food wine, holding up to some heavier pairings.

Perhaps the biggest recommendation for this wine is that Kevin had several glasses and he likes to say he hasn't "found his inner pink." He's usually not a fan of rosés, but I think this one won him over. I also think it's worth the $18.99.

Enjoy!

Our review:

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Wine Shop Wednesday: Stocking and Shelving

This is the one several recurring posts from David Lazarus about the intricacies of opening and running a wine shop. David's posts will appear on Wednesdays.

In my last post, I stopped right as we had applied for our license and had started contacting wine distributors.

The fun was really beginning. We were tasting wine in preparation for stocking the store. I had already ordered our wine racks and since they had been delayed by several weeks, I figured we would be delayed in getting things going. Well, we got the liquor license in the mail just a couple of weeks after the final hoop had been jumped, surprise!

The racks are still not here we have just begun sampling wine. The holiday season is still several months away, so no sweat. We also needed to come up with a logo, cards and a sign. We had decided on a name: the building sits right across the street from Mt Washington’s iconic art deco water tower, so of course we should call our store Water Tower Fine Wines. We contacted a graphic designer, who proposed several concepts and we gave our input. It took three more visits and three weeks until they finally produced the drawing that I had asked for after the first meeting. We had our logo and business card design.

The fun part was actually anything but … I am not saying that sampling all of those wines was not fun, in fact, that part was great. The hard part was the the decisions I had to make. After all, I couldn't buy every wine I liked! The obvious reason, money, was a factor, but space was also a major piece of the puzzle. I had planned to open with 400-500 wines, and I really tried to stay within that number, but there were just too many good wines out there and some of the distributors got to me after I had already filled the bulk of my slots. I could not help myself, I had to buy more. The remaining distributors got fewer orders and yes there are wines I wanted to buy, but did not. I hope to bring some of them in the future. Even with a little self restraint, I still ended up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 wines.

I ordered the wines and set the deliveries for the week before we planned to open. I figured this would be plenty of time. Wrong. We had scheduled to host a fundraiser at our house the Sunday before we were to open. Just a little more pressure, no problem.

The deliveries were a special joy all to themselves. I had ordered three bottles of each wine selected, so there were many split cases with three bottles of four different wines each. Each and every bottle needs to be checked in and at least one of the distributors could not seem to get all three bottles of the same wine in one case! At least when this wine came in the salesman came in and helped check the wine in.

Once all the wine was in the store, we had to hand price every bottle, plan out the racks and place the wines. I had rack space for about 480 different wines and almost seven hundred different wines. So I had to run out and get metal racks to hold the overflow. We were working to get wines shelved until we opened our doors and actually had four cases still not priced or on display.

During our first week being open, we have had multiple sales each day even though we have done no promotion. Our computerized cash register and inventory system is still at least a week away from being installed, but we have been able limp along with a cash register left by the previous owners. This has a lot of work, more than I anticipated at the outset.  Having to select a large number of wines at once to stock a store is difficult. I ended up caving to my desire to have a lot of neat wines and thus have more wine in the store than I had intended. Hopefully our customers appreciate the unique selection.