Working at Wine Maestro has given me so many opportunities to experience new wines. Lisa selects 5 new wines every 2 weeks for our regular flights. These wines range from $12-$30 bottles and include both reds and whites from around the world. Recently, she also began offering premium wine flights featuring both red, white and rose wines priced at $25-$60 per bottle. One of the perks at this job is I get to workshop all of the wines with Lisa, John, Tracy and Julie. Collectively, we sip, swirl and talk about the wines…what we like, what we don’t, what we’d eat it with, when we’d most enjoy having it ….the list goes on. These are my favorite kinds of conversations….wine and food. Here are my top 5 picks so far from this summer’s tastings.
First the whites. St. Supery is a winery out of Napa Valley that produces 100% estate grown wines. They are certified as part of the Napa Green program which means they are serious about producing amazing wines that come from the beauty of the land and the grape, using a biodynamic process. Both their Unoaked Chardonnay and their Sauvignon Blanc are outstanding. At around $16 a bottle, you get a complex and beautiful wine experience.
The sauvignon blanc has a perfectly balanced acidity with lime, passion fruit and yellow grapefruit flavors. The flavors are distinctive and unique. The wine stays with you and lingers on the palate offering a complexity and finish that is amazing.
The chardonnay derives all of delicious, rich flavor from the fruit, rich tropical aromas combine with apricot, peach and a hint of kiwi and the apricot continues all the way through the finish.
Uruguay, which means “river of birds” is relatively new to the wine scene. They began producing serious wines in the late 80’s, early 90’s and are considered to be “one the purest vineyard environments in the world” due to their gentle maritime climate and location on the edge of the Atlantic. Uruguay currently has over 270 mostly family owned wineries and the wine world is excited about the beauty of the wines coming out of these vineyards. Bodega Garzon produces single vineyard wines with beauty and character. At around $17 a bottle, it is a wine experience not to be missed.
I got to experience Bodega Garzon’s Albarino at Corkscrew Wine Bar in Huntersville, NC. They offer unique wines and the owner is passionate about sharing his knowledge and love for wine. This medium bodied wine offers peach and melon flavors, a creamy texture and a hint of savoriness with lots of pineapple and melon flavors at the finish. It is an exciting wine that had me looking up pairings right there at the shop. Grilled seafood with a warm mango and white bean salad, Citrusy Prawn Salad, Ceviche from Peru…this wine is absolutely made to pair with seafood.
John and Lisa opened up this bottle to celebrate a big sale day at the shop. Drinking this wine explains in a way words cannot, how a great wine can be an experience. We were all speechless, just savoring and feeling our first tastes. John and Lisa knew this wine and so waited for our reactions. First, I was without words and nearly in tears. It had been a long time since I’d tasted a wine as good as this one. My next sips had me analyzing each part of the wine and then, as I’d continue tasting, I would get lost in emotion over each new glimpse. It is balanced, complex, stays with you and offers different nuances over the whole drinking experience. Groth Cabernet Sauvignon comes from Oakville, California and has the distinction of being the first US wine to be given 100 points by Robert Parker in 1985. Two more bottles to try that are also in this same category of deliciousness include:
These are both after work bottles for me. All 3 of these Napa Valley wines come in at around $60. All will leave you with a feeling of decadence, defy description and with a clear understanding of what it means to be a great wine.
And my wish wine…this one, I found when chatting with a customer at Wine Maestro. I can talk endlessly about wine and often people who love it too, have bottles they can’t wait to share with you. Roy and his wife stopped into Wine Maestro to have a few glasses of Hall Cabernet Sauvignon. I shared my story about becoming a sommelier and Roy shared what he calls “New Year’s Eve” bottles of wine…wines that are so special and typically expensive that you save them for special times when you want to reflect and contemplate, celebrate life. He suggested, Ulysses Cabernet Sauvignon. At around $195 a bottle, this bottle is the most expensive on my list. This wine comes from a 31 acre vineyard in Autre Rivage.. Oakville, Napa Valley. It is the passion project of Christian Moueix, a French winemaker who has his experience overseeing the beautiful wines that come from St. Emilion.
