I find this POP from Pommery to be too sweet and fruity for my liking. I like something dry and toasty that melts in your mouth. Those things tend to cost a bit more - though there are a few in the 10 - 25 dollar price range that fit the bill. Anyway, this fruity somewhat sweetish champagne is on sale for 20 bucks - normally selling for 30.

From Australia’s southern vineyards we are checking out Penfolds’ Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, both from 2003 and both selling for $16/bottle. The Shiraz is full of dark fruits in the nose with some intense peppery spice. A rich luscious mouthful of berries chocolate coffee and pepper finishing with yummy tannic structure. Dry, but not overpoweringly so, finishes with some flavourful oaky notes.

The Cabernet has intense cassis and smoke in the nose and is pretty much the same on the tongue. Still offering some nice fruitness, this is a relatively staunch wine for those who like something with a smokey woodbite.

For the sake of being polite and, in general, cleaning up my language for this discourse, I shall end today’s blogging sesssion……
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NOW!

First item of consumption shall be the Cantine Maschio Prosecco Del Veneto. This inexpensive sparkling Italian Prosecco (grape) has a lightly floral nose of pear apples and apricots. In the mouth it hits very much the same- especailly the apple matter. Crisp, clean and refreshing, this is the other perfect summer wine meant to be drunk by itself at a street cafe anywhere in the so-called civilized world.

Nextly we cascade along to a lush white - the Falanghina (grape) Del Feudi, selected from a variety of locales in the San Gregorio region of Italy. The Falaghina grape is a lighter varietal a deceptively nasturiumesque nose but it hits the mouth with an odd combo of banana and scotch. The amazing thing about this wine, though, is the instantaneous creamy mouthfeel that melts away into nothingness leaving you feeling naked and restless. Once again I am reminded of something I can’t discuss on this blog. If anyone is interested in details just stop in the store and mention things unmentionable and you are sure to get a verbal treat hitherto unknown to eminate from anyone’s chewing mouthparts.

Sliding down the slippery slope of fermented fruits I uncork the wisdom of Carpineto’s ‘Dogajolo” Super Tuscan. This Super Tuscan is not even an IGT, but it is one of my favourites in its price catgory. 80% Sangiovese and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon this blend gives good nose of maple and pepper with some dark berry notes (musical fruit). It also gives good mouth offering a full flavour spectrum of dark fruits with a hint of vanilla laden coffee. This medium to full body wine has an excellent tannin structure and is perfectly dry.

To end the evening and the month we induldge ourselves with a 2002 Donatello Rosso di Montalcino (DOC). This wine has a sweet nose of honey and rose and is loaded with fruit accompanied by a warm full bodied mouthfull of dry woodiness. Smooth as can be, for the twenty something dollars a bottle this is a splendid alternative to the full blown Brunello di Montalcino from the same vintner.

I am done for the day. I find wine tasting to be a most tedious task. Most demanding on the mouth and brain. I shall rest well and rejuvenate my palette for next month so I can better serve you.

First down the hatch tonight is Nino Franco’s “Rustico” Prosecco di Valdobbiadene. Prosecco, as you know, is a sparkling (spumante) Italian white. Nice tight little bubbles with an overall oral tonailty of sparkling apple cider - a little tart, a little sweet. This sparkling Italian delight falls into the category of sacred treats to be consumed only on festive occasions absent offensive people.

The true treat for the evenining is a white wine from the only truly viable white growing region of Tuscany, San Gimignano. This IGT is comprised entirely or primarily of the Vernaccia grape. If it does contain others they would be the Trebbiano, the Vermentino and Malvasia. Who knows? Who cares? This wine has a nose of smoked apricots and Oak and hits the mouth with the buttersmooth mouthfeel like a chardonnay but is so light it actually melts in the mouth and tastes like the european and asian pears. The asian pear, you will recall, is has an extrememly floral palette. This wine is a must have- at some point in your life.

Lastly we indulge oursleves in Aziano’s DOCG Chianti Classico. This is an unoffensive, medium body, easy drinking wine with no particular depth or charachter. It does have some nice curried sex overtones in the nose- if you are into that sort of thing then this is the wine for you.

So here is the recap for yesterday, Friday June 9:

La Cala 2004 DOC: Vermentino di Sardegna - this is a crisp clean fruity and mild easy drinking summer wine. It is also quite inexpensive. People like it.

Belicon: Nero D’avola/Merlot, Sicily - This is a serious wine and is only for the lover of rich intense bold nasty offensive fermented grapes. It is a bellowing nosebleed full of coffee and chocolate with nutty smoke features. Mouthfeelwise it is like turkish coffee and tastes like coffee, chocolate, anise and vanilla.

Four Play 2003: Sicilan blend. Four of Sicily’s indigenous grapes in equal parts: the equivocal Nerollo Mascalese, the fantabulous Nero d’Avola, the subtle Nerollo Capuccio, and the equisute Frapatto Nero. Completely avoiding sexual innuendo, I like Fourplay. It is a medium body wine with nice legs and would be a good first bottle to drink while simultaneously opening something for the main event of the evenings festivities that might be a little more penetrating (like the Belicon) - a fistful of fun.

OK, yesterday is gone and we must move on to new realities. We are still playing around in Italy today consuming a Venezien (IGT) Pinot Grigio in a botttle shaped like shampoo (hence the free bottle of conditioner with each purchase of 3 or more). It is another easy drinking wine, light, a little sweetness, smooth mouthfeel like XXXXXXX, and some citrus zesty tartness all at the nice price of….well, I can’t see the sign from here.

Next on the list of things to drink is an IGT super-Tuscan. IGT means Indicazione Geographica Tipica and is the lesser classification of wine demoninations of Italian Wine Law. It simply means that they are quality wines that do not adhere to the more tradition methods of grape varietals allowed in a wine from a particular region. For example, the Villa Puccini is a 2001 IGT from Tuscany and instead of being 100% Sangiovese grape, it is allowed to contain other varietals - in this case it has 10% merlot grapes grown on the estate. Moreso, the wine is called a “Super Tuscan” because they are allowed to add other things to it other than the Sangiovese. Thus, super-Tuscan must be an IGT since the DOC and DOCG can not contain anything but the Sangiovese - if from the Tuscan Region of France (Italy). If that makes no sense keep drinking and eventually all matters of confusion will spontaneously resolve.

Hitting the best, last, wine sink our tongue into the Salamartano 2001 IGT from Tuscany. This lush wine is a Bordeaux style blend of fitty/fitty Cabernet/Merlot. It is a full body with a rich pomegranite and deciduous forest nose and a chewy woody and chocolatey mouthful with notes of tobacco, cherries, and floral peppery tones similar to nasturtium or poor man’s pepper. A great wine in its price category - normally selling for $30/bottle tonight we are offering it for $26. If you are interested, this is my style of wine. If you are not interested, this is still my style of wine. My wine selections are linearly independent of your interest in my life. However, your wine selections at Town and Country Liquors are highly subject to my a number of factors ranging from what you are having for dinner to the style of person I think you are.
Tschuss till next week.

Happy drinking.

Briefly, yesterday we tasted 4 wines from Clay Stations Lodi Valley vineyards - all at the homeslice price of 10 guilders a bottle. The vionier is a lush nectary herbaceous and floral mouthful of love (eeeeeek). This wine would make an excellent compliment to …..hmmmm, can’t really say that on the blog. The Old Vine Zinfandel was a luscious mouthful of dark berries with some noticable black oil-cured olive notes and full on fruit as a good cali Zin should be. The Malbec, 2003, is a fully even keeled wine blending a nice dry woodiness with the lingery fruit morsels you get out of the zin - actually, but the fruits are more in the cherry than the berry. Lastly, the shiraz - 2002 - is a smoking mouthful of wood and plum certainly a good addition to an evening composed of food, music, and horizontal thrusting gestures (see disclaimer from yesterdays).

Moving right along before I get in too much trouble, tonight we are lapping three treats from California (in preparation for the two ensuing weeks stuck in Italy). First out of the gate is the 2004 Chardonnay from Kali Hart’s Monetery County vineyards. The nose is full of lemon and applepeachpear. It hits the mouth with your classic chardonnay buttery smoothness and yields flavours very much in the grapey/raisiny spectrum finishing with light apple pie and mild floral overtones. Ha. I can’t believe you listen to me spewing this stuff. Well, no one really reads this blog so I am safe.

The Joel Gott 2003 Cab Sauv (blend no 815 (see Dr. Seuss Red Fish Blue Fish for details)) for 16 bucks eine flasche is a noseload full of raspberry jam with old housebeam, fire place and smoke inhalation lung damage. Seriously, it smells exactly like the jam I served at Tsarevitch, a Russian restaurant I waited, bartended, and ultimately became manager at until I moved up here to go to thchool. It was in the west village between Greenwich ave and waverly place on W 10th street. That was a strange time in my life. Mouthwise, Joel God is full body and not intensely tannic but full of woodsmoke and fire with bits of peppery palatte stimulants and some lingering fruit, but not too much. It is a little sharp in the finish at 13.9% ethanol. We’re seeling Joel, for any of you men or women out there interested, for $16 a bottle tonight.

The last item up for consumption is the Napa Valley Silverado, 2001 from the Stag’s Leap district. Normally this is a $70 bottle of wine, but we sell it for 49$ and tonight it is just $44. This thing has a nose of a mild curry with cardamom and sour cherries and chocolate. It has a rich, layered, set of flavours starting with fruit and ending with hickory smoked anything while it runs its course in your mouth you will again be reminded of the asian spices. The 14.5% alcohol definitely stands out and lends a clean finish to the last layer of complexity. Serve in glasses using people to drink it.

Here’s about the wines:

Tonight we are checking out a drinkable, if not somewhat shaley, chardonnay from Camelot - from Santa Rosa California. It is inexpensive such that you will enjoy the oral experience enough to justify purchasing a case for some hot fun in the summer. This wine would actually go really great with a crustaceous sort of scampi style dish - or anything white and fatty (see yesterday’s disclaimer). I know this, I am vegan.

Next we dive our nose into a Napa Valley 2005 Pinot Noir from Cartlidge and Brown has a rich nose of cherry and plum fruit roll ups with a little bit of minerality. It has a smoothish chocolatey mouth feel and while not a particlarly fruity wine, save some dark cherries, it has some nutty country overtones and its medium body and smooth tannins will make a great compliment to an seared tempeh with ginger, tamari, scallions, red pepper, chillies, garlic, plum, rice wine vinegar etc and, as implied, sear the hell out of it. Serve with edamame with caramelized onions.

Cartelidge and Bone’s 2004 Merlot has a super jammy nose- total cherry and raspberry. Great wood and smoke accompanies a very fruity but dry mouthful of tannins, cherries, coffee, chocolate, with hints of tobacco and reef… (oops).

I’ve always been somewhat impressed with Sterling’s products in the mid price category. They are all great quality and easy drinking.

The Pinot Grigio is dry, crisp, light, and full of pineapply citrus notes. Certainly a clean refreshing treat for the lady in you (disclaimer - I have a tendancy to froth at the mouth and one should not read anything into comments that I make on this blog that may seem in any way offensive. If you have any doubts please come in and confront me in person and I shall dispell and doubts you may have about my worldy disposition).

SV’s 2003 Merlot is a fruity delight. Medium tannins and a med to full body splendidly compliment the full on cherries jubilee with a whiff of raspberry charlotte rousse (remember those).

The 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, in the great California tradition of Calicabs, has some rich tarry brambly nose flavour, with lots of dark berry in the mouth along with some murky tar laden (not bin laden) mouthfeel. A most enjoyable wine if you like full on fruity California Cabs (as opposed to their French counterparts which are typically much stauncher (I just wanted to say that word).

OK, you can go now.

Tonight we are checking out a drinkable white from Sebatiani and Sons Pepperwood label. This 2004 chardonnay has a lot of buttery citrus goat in the nose and is slaps the mouth like budda- seriously. For an inexpensive wine it sure has a great mouthfeel. It could be the addition of extraneous mouthfeel agents. Flavourwise it still yeilds some goaty attitude including hay, wood sorrel, clover, and woodchuck (don’t ask).

It’s 5:19 PM now and people are starting to file in. Like clockwork, the world would stop if people did not come to Town and Country liquors on Friday to stock up for the weekend alcholympics. You can set your timepiece to a lot of the people that patronize us. You can tell the time of day from the empty bottle pattern on the shelves.

We are tasting two Monterey County (Ca) wines from Chalone Vineyards: a 2004 Pinot Noir and a 2003 Merlot.

The Pinot Noir has an excellent nose full of strawberries and marshmellows. I call it Frankenberry. A delicious medium body, easy DRINKING wine with seriously strawberry enhanced flavour molecules and some subtle earthy tones reminiscent of a car ride I took through the black forest in Germany on my way to Freiberg to cop a vizit with my future X-wife.

The Merlot is excellent. A dry velvety lush mouthful of dark cherries, smoke, mineral and metal accompanies the noseful of cherries, caramel, cinamon and vanilla.

Anyway, don’t guilt me for not being with you now. Instead - and you should be proud of me - I am educating the public about alcohol.

Our special Mother’s day selection was chosen precisely to celebrate this day for you, which, as it stands, the creation of Mother’s Day is attributed to Julia Ward Howe, who was calling for women to band together and address crititcal issues of war and peace back in the late 1800’s.

All reality aside, this blog is about wine so let’s get started. We are focussing our tongues and livers on rose wines tonight. In order of increasing dryness, save the dessert wine, we in with:

1. A red muscadelle from South Afrika. Van Loveren’s Pink Lady has a fascinating yellow pink color that flouresces. Light flower essences in the nose and a tiny touch of sweetness to the lips backed up by mild fruits flowers. It tastes like a mother’s day gift basket. The red muscadelle is typically associated with Australian Tokajs. It’s a nice wine for the price at ten bucks just for the mother.

2. From Alison Vineyards across the majestic Hudson we have a 2002 Rose blend of god knows what. This wine has a very interesting nose. Its kind of like a cherry twizzer. Don’t be misled by the sweet stream up the ol’ factories, this wine has a dense mouthfeel and is pretty dry and full as if it were a rose of cab franc- Alisons other prime wine. Only the vintner knows whats in it. Don’t waste your time trying to figure it out.

3. Flying right along we land in Provence, France, to tackle the Fleur de Mer, a light pink, light palette, dry rose giving off some tart apple cherry pie in the nose is a voluptuous mouthfeelfull of almost no flavor. It might most closely resmble a homeopathic dose of rosewater infused with 13% alcohol. If you like light refreshing substances packed in a sexy bottle shaped like a german woman this is the wine for you - weighing in a nein dollars fur eine flasche.

Lastly we embark into the deranged land of dessert wine, sinking our teeth into the sweet delight of our other Brachetto d’ Acqui - basically a red Asti Spumante. An absolutely delicious brachetto/black muscat blend that is sweet like dark berries and flowery like Lavendar and Rose. Yes, of course, it is a sparkling wine (ie spumante). Oh, I should mention the name of the substance- Rosa Regale - a Banfi ™ product.

Thats it for the evenin folks…..see ya tomorrow.

You aint gonna believe me, so you’re gonna have to waft it yourself, but this white has a nose of ripe peaches and cream. It is a crisp, yet soft, and refreshing wine. Loaded with nectary fruits and some swift citrus this wine is perfect by itself in a botanical garden or preserve reading Walt Whitman, John Burroughs, or some Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson.

At $10 a bottle, this is the steal of the century. Trust me, I am completely clueless.

This evening reds are two from Paso Robles California.

In front of my right hand is the 2oo3 “Petite Rousse”, a 100% Syrah, weighing in at 14.5% alcohol. After breathing a little the nose is developing some nice nutty coffee overtones on top of this otherwise redberrry fruit filled wine. Mellow tannins provide a smooth mouthful of opulent fruit with some nice subtle cardomam and other aromatics. Everyone seems to love this wine, so if you are not everyone, this wine is not for you.

Lastly we indulge in the 2003 Tablas Creek Vineyards - estate grown and bottled - southern Rhone blend: 60% Grenache, 24% Syrah, 12% Mourvedre, and 4% Counoise. This Wine received a 91 points from Robert Parker and is well deserving of such a rating. The nose on this wine is incredible. It is loaded with dark fruits and a very distinct floral essence of purple flowering raspberry. If you are not familiar with the smell of the ripe flower of the purple flowering raspberry might I suggest ye get the to a cliff laden arena situated along a stream- an ideal spot for the purple flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus).

In your mouth this wine, at 15.2% alcohol, is about as dry a wine your gonna find. Still, however, is is full of dark raspberries and cherries with some plum and violet notes. This is a real heavy hitter, definitely a food wine- perfect for smoked foods and rich sauces.

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Stay tuned for the update to our tasting list for the month of May- sorry for the delay.

On behalf of myself, Bacchus, and our loyal patrons, I bid thee all a most splendiferous week until we meet again next friday.