I feel the need, the need for MEAD!

It was our great pleasure at The Wine Bottega to have Garth from our favorite local Meadery, Green River Ambrosia, join us this past Wednesday for our first ever Mead Fest!  We met Garth a couple months ago while preparing for an event that featured local organic agriculturalists and international music.  The Wine Bottega took part by pairing wines with local honeys and we serendipitously encountered Garth (the quintessential name for a mead brewmeister!).   Boston has a great core group of mead enthusiasts and we at The Bottega had been searching for the best way to really dive into this ancient fermented brew.  Green River Ambrosia is a three man operation located in Greenfield, Massachusetts, just a couple hours to our west. 

Resonance Vineyards, Oregon

Kevin Chambers of Resonance Vineyard

We were visited this week by Kevin Chambers of Resonance Vineyards a small producer of biodynamic wines from the Yamhill-Carlton AVA Oregon.  For many years Kevin and his wife Carla grew grapes on their 20ha estate and sold them to area wineries, such as Wine Bottega favorites Sineann and Lemelson.  In 2006, they decided to start making their own wines and we were excited to taste through his line-up.  We started with the 2007 g3 Resonance White,which is a blend of 75% gewurztraminer, 20% pinot gris and 5% muller-thurgau (not a grape that I knew they grew in Oregon).

A Little Loire Drama…

Pascal Jolivet checking our facts.

 So, we had an unexpected visitor to the Bottega today.  Pascal Jolivet is one of  the best known names in Loire sauvignon blanc for his crisp Sancerre and  Pouilly Fume. The most interesting part  of our conversation was regarding biodynamic winemaking.  Matt mentioned that that Dom. des Huards (whose 2002 Cour-Cheverny we just  brought in) had installed a sprinkler system that in the case of frost would  allow them to dampen the grapes so that the water would freeze and create a  protective ice blanket for the grapes.  Monsieur Jolivet looked at us like we  were completely insane and when we insisted, he quickly jumped on the phone  to his friend in Cour Cheverny to check our facts.  Turns out, we were right!  Go Bottega!  Ok, on to the wines…

Good Morning, Gianluca Grasso!

Every day should start off so well!  As I wrangled our ridiculous grates off the windows this morning, shivering in the frigid air, I looked up to see Gianluca Grasso of Azienda Agricola Elio Grasso heading my way.  I had met Gianluca, his mother Marina and his father Elio last April when I visited their beautiful winery in Monforte D’Alba.  I have always been a huge fan of their beautifully crafted wines and this was only reinforced after experiencing their passion and commitment to quality first hand, not to mention the warmth of their welcome and sincere hospitality.   Gianluca is in Boston this week with samples of the yet to be released 2005 Barolos and his 2006 Barbera.  I will admit that I was a little worried about how the 2005’s would stack up after the epic 2004 vintage, but I should have known better.

Do you have Dog Point? A spontaneous vertical tasting.

It was one of those weird small world coincidences that I love so much about this industry…  

I could tell that the two guys who walked into the store knew about wine. Although my attempts at striking up a conversation weren’t going so well, I knew that sooner or later they would stumble across something that would get the ball rolling.  It turned out to be the St. Clair “Vicar’s Choice” Pinot Noir from Marlborough, NZ which is made by my good friend Julie Ibbotson’s (now Grono)  parents.

 Turns out that initially reticent guy, David, had actually spent some time making wine at Nobilo in New Zealand!  

The name game started and it turns out that he knew quite a few people who were studying wine making at the University of Adelaide, while I was studying wine business.  David asked if I was familiar with Dog Point Vineyards, a Marlborough winery that he respected, but didn’t often see their wines in the U.S.  To continue with strange coincidence, I just happened to have a three year vertical (2002, 2003, 2004) of Dog Point Chardonnay tucked away in the fridge that I had been meaning to sample for the past month and just hadn’t gotten around to.  (Now I realize it was not laziness, it was just destined to wait for this unique opportunity.)