Oh It's Good To Be Back

And we're back!

After taking last week off from our regularly scheduled Tasting for the Wine + Food Festival, we're right back at it this week. We hope you got to get out there and enjoy some of the events and festivities that the Festival had to offer; we sure did and it was a great time!

Getting back into it, we're coming in strong! There's quite a bit going on in March and we're stoked about it all! First things first, March is Women's History Month. And you know how much we love highlighting the incredible and talented females of the industry; be it winemakers, distillers, owners or just all-around badasses! Since the Shop had been the brainchild and operated for twenty-five years by a woman (Debbie Marlowe is doing well and has officially moved to North Carolina as of a couple weeks ago) and is now owned and operated by a woman (Laurie Osbon is also doing well and you can say hello to her at our Tastings every week!), showcasing female producers is something dear to our hearts here at the Shop. 

* Spoiler Alert *

We're doing only wines made by females for the last two Tastings of the month, on the 22nd and the 29th. 

The aforementioned spoiler-alert-themed tastings aside, we will certainly be featuring female producers this week and next, just not a full-on all Vigneronnes lineup. The actual theme for this week will be one powerhouse winemaking country alongside another; not so much a competition but rather featuring some spectacular wines from two Old World countries. France and Italy!

First up, from Alto Adige in Northern Italy, is Venica & Venica Pinot Grigio "Jesera". This wine pinged our radar some time ago when we learned that this is the only Pinot Grigio that Michelin Star Chef Daniel Boulud will use in his restaurants. That kind of endorsement alone is reason enough to put it as a mainstay on our shelf and we're excited for you to try it if you haven't already! The 'Venica & Venica' portion is for brothers, Gianni and Giorgio Venica who own and make the wine. Jesera is the name of the vineyard from which this Pinot Grigio comes from. There word 'Jesera' itself comes from the Slovenian for "little lake" and has a slight rose or copper hue which it picks up from the skins during the cold maceration.

Continuing in Italy and staying in Alto Adige, we'll be enjoying the first of our female-made wines: Schiava from Elena Walch. Divinely Alpine, Elena Walch leads innovation if Northern Italy's Alto Adige region. Sisters, Julia and Karoline Walch, daughters of Elena, are the family's fifth generation of winemakers.

Moving on to France, we'll be entering the realm of sommelier nerdom. Côte-Rôtie is the northernmost appellation in the Rhone Valley, immediately south of Burgundy, and here they handle their Syrah with the delicacy, the beauty and the finesse that the Burgundians apply to their Pinot Noir. Even further than that, the wine we'll be enjoying will be a declassified Côte-Rôtie from Domaine Clusel-Roch called Rouge Serine. Technically a Vine de Table, or Vin de France, Rouge Serine is the name of the Syrah clone they use and it's ridiculously amazing.

And finally, the second of our two female-produced wines this week. From the Left Bank of Bordeaux, we'll dive into Julie Gonet-Medeville's Bordeaux Superieur Cru Monplaisir. Julie and her husband Xavier are in many ways the first couple of French wines. Both hail from storied winemaking families: Julie's family is famous for its incomparable Chateau Gilette and Xavier comes from a long line of Champagne growers in Le Mesnil. Their expertise and delicate hand absolutely shines in this wine.

That'll be the show and it's going to be a good one! We figured that since we had deprived you of a week that we needed to put forth a great performance so that's precisely what we're going to do. We'll see you there!

Salud,

The Wine Shop Team