Iron Horse Tasting

Hi,
These are some shots from our tasting yesterday with Justine From Iron Horse winery. We carry all the great Sparkling wine from this famous California Winery.

Our hostess and her great wines lined up in the tasting area.

Justine explaining the wines to our staff member Liz.

A detail of the wines in line up . . . Rose Brut, The Wedding Cuvee, The Russian Cuvee,
The Vintage Brut and finally the Blanc De Blancs.

Justine showing the wines to some very happy customers!!
A quick note about the Russian Cuvee that I just saw was not on our site anyplace else! This wine was so named due to the fact that it was drunk by President Regan and Gorbachev at the summit meeting in Washington DC in 1987.
That's it for now.
Thanks For reading!
Ben
02/05/10

Dinner at Spice Market

Hi All,

Last night I went out to Spice Market - Jean Georges Asian fusion restaurant in NYC. Here is a little review of the food, drinks and wine that we tasted there. It is restaurant week here in NYC - and its a great time to go out and eat. First interesting thing was that we arrived for out 9.15 reservation at 8.30 due to unforeseen transportation details. To my very great surprise they seated us right away, and the entrance and facilitation of this was quite easy and effortless!

After being seated, we ordered and had a quick bite of papadoms (chick pea chips with black pepper) and tomato chutney. These were great and quite interesting; like a chips and salsa from India! Our drinks arrived next- a whiskey fizz made with Bulleit Bourbon that was quite complex and great. The second drink was a raspberry Bellini. The cocktails were quite good- though the bellini was good it was a little too fruity for both my wife and me. 

The next course was chicken samosas, and a mushroom egg roll with glangal in it. I didn't get any of the Samosas, but the rolls were very, very, very good; and came with a variation on sauce: a mint and yogurt sauce rather then a duck sauce. Earthy, bright and brilliantly flavored - I loved this dish. These are quite good, and I would go back for this dish alone!
Next up was a soup and salad course. The soup was a butternut squash soup that was good, and a nice dish considering the temperature outside (near zero degrees with wind chill here in the city!). The salad was green papaya, apples and ginger. A tasty balance of acid and fruit notes.

The final course of non-sweet food was the main course. MY wife selected cod, which she said was good, but not great. My vegetables in green curry sauce was great however - each of the several different kinds of veggie was cooked to perfection and the green curry was spot on, smooth and a little spicy.

Now for the two little problems. One was that the service was almost perfect, but the food runners, while extremely polite and clearly good at their job, seemed a little nervous; not that this caused any issues for us. The second was that the dessert was a disappointment. We ordered a Ovaltine kulfi, which came with caramelized banana, and spiced milk chocolate sauce. It was basically a big bar of chocolate flavored ganache with some sauces . . . This seems to be a trend in the pastry chef world- but I wish it would stop.

All in all, a restaurant I would return to in for a night of small plates or cocktails and a snack. The service was excellent; and the room is totally beautiful. Plus the food was very, very good if not exceptional.

Thanks,
Ben
1/30/2010

Austrian Winemakers Tasting

Hi all,

Yesterday, 67 Wine and Spirits was lucky enough to host two very talented winemakers from Vienna, Austria: Michael Martin and Gerhard Lobner. These two gentleman are amazingly talented winemakers working on two projects each, and creating great wines for both! Michael is making great wines under the Martinshof label, and also makes wine for the Heuriger 'Zum Martin Sepp'. A heuriger is the name for wine bars in Vienna, and these are great easy drinking wines that they serve in the bar (named for Michael's grandfather!) We tasted the Gruner in this line, but they make a lovely Zweigelt in this series as well. We also tasted several of the higher end Martinshof wines- including this amazing Pinot Noir.

Here are some photos:

This actually has Gerhard, Carlo Huber, and Michael Martin. Carlo is one of the two people who import these wines.

Next we tasted a bunch of wines from Mayer am Pfarrplatz and Rotes Haus. These are both made by Gerhard Lobner. The Mayer am Pfarrplatz Riesling is crisp, dry, and really elegant. The wines from the Rotes Haus (which has a little house in the middle of the vineyards) were great- the Gemischter Satz Nussberg Reserve is a classic beautiful field blend from the only wine style to win an award from the slow foods movement for tradition and sustainability in wine making! Gerhard also makes a great sweet wine called Rotes Haus Traminer that we stock in half bottles- great sweet wine that we often pair with fruit tarts, or fois gras.

Here are some more shots from the tasting:

Carlo and Gerhard deep in conversation!

Gerhard explaining his wines to a customer while Michelle from David Bowler Wines looks on.

Michelle of David Bowler Wines giving details about the wines to a customer.

This final photo features Paul Darcy opening a bottle for the customers! Paul is the other member of the import team for these wines.

Thanks to Darcy and Huber, Bowler, and Michael Martin and Gerhard Lobner for hosting this event; it was a great tasting! Ben 01/28/10

Salcheto wines tasting 1/16

Hi all,
Here was the scene at a tasting we held last week- a lot of fun!

This great Tuscan winery is owned by our friend Ron Prashker. Here is is presenting the wines.

And the wines that Ron opened for us, including great vino nobile, and Salco- a special cuvee.

Another great image of the same thing; this time with the prices up!

Here are customers enjoying the tasting. I hope people had a good time!

Mathew explaining the flavors he was getting in the wines to a customer.

A few shots of Ron chatting with customers.

one more shot of Ron talking about the wines.

This tasting was a lot of fun, and I hope at some point you'll check out the great wines these folks make in Tuscany!

Mid January day at 67

Hi all,
Today was a pretty typical day here at the store. Working on some projects - trying to get things organized in the "cool room" and selecting some wines to order. I had one appointment with the great importer Savio Soares. We tasted several very good wines. I'd like to mention three of them here:

The first- coming in this week is the Mouressipe Cuvee Tracassier from Alain Allier. This is part of the very new school of french winemakers making "Vin Naturel" bottles made from organically grown grapes and non interventionist winemaking- plus bottled without sulfur added. A great grenache wine with nice color and a slight cloudyness from being unfined and unfiltered. The nose was amazing- with complex herbal notes (tarragon and chives); and great dark berry fruit. secondary flavors of tar and tabacco are present as well. On the palate this wine is pretty and complex with great smooth texture and nice weight. The finish goes on and on. In short a great wine!!


The next two are wines that we already stocked, but I thought that since we had them both I'd refresh them.
The first is the great biodynamic Bordeaux Champ Des Treilles. This great estate is farmed biodynamicly, and makes some great bordeaux at really reasonable prices.
I loved this wine at the first taste- and still do. It's got nice color, and really nice clean notes of plums and cherries as well as coco. In the palate is has nice mellow tannins.


The final wine I'd like to mention is an Arbois! Phillipe Bonard's Pupilin Chardonnay 2006. A great Chardonnay that is full of earth with mushrooms, bright melon and clean stone minerals . . . Lovely wine.
Check those wines out and check out Savio's website- he is fast becoming a great importer and very focused on natural and organic and biodynamic wines!
Thanks,
Ben

A Party at a famous wine writers!

I was invited to a party at the home of a great wine writer this weekend to celebrate the changing of the decade.

What a great event! I was treated to a gaggle of very interesting people who were super nice with great stories and opinions! A great time. Aside from this there was some very good wine (more on that in a second . .); and amazing food. I brought two homemade focaccia breads; one with rosemary, one made with sage. Also served was a great biryani and some lovely cheeses.
The wines of the night are pictured below:

Now, we of course carry only one of these wineries. . .but the others are well worth seeking out.

The wines were a Bourgueil from Domaine Guion. A lovely wine made in the Loire- I tasted red fruit, earth and a lovely strength for a Loire valley wine.

The next wine was the Herve Souhaut Syrah made in the Cotes du Rhone in France . . this is great wine, and a few years ago was quite my favorite wine at the Jenny and Francois wine tasting. Dark berries; smooth, beautiful, and great!

Next up was the Clos Rougeard Saumer Champigny- This was the wine of the night as far as what I got to try- beautiful, lush, earthy with bright berries and totally great subtle mouthfeel.

Last up was the wine that tasted (as an astute observer noted) like syrup. The Stags Leap Cask 23 1997. One of the best wines of California, but strange at this gathering . . intense and syrupy with no tannins left and nice flavors, but not too enticing for my palate compared to other wines I did not know!

The host, famous wine writer and natural wine heroine Alice Feiring, is one of the great pleasures about working in wine, please go and check out her amazing writing. Also in attendance was Abe Schoener from the Scholium project- whose Red Hook (yes, as in Brooklyn!) wines were opened and you'll see them in the store soon! I love a good party, especially when it gives me a chance to hang with my favorite food blogger, and social media master, Zachary Adam Cohen- check his Farm to Table blog out- great ideas about food and other society issues.

There were a lot of cool people that i met for the first time at this event- I wanted to shout out to a few of them right now! Pam Govinda is a wine and lifestyle writer who has composed several of my favorite articles; the ones about counterfeit wine are amazing!

Last but not least- Adam Morgenstern and his wife- Thecla. Adam and Thecla are very funny, and both have a great nose for wine- he edits the great online magazine- Organic Wine Journal. Great stuff from all these talented people, plus great wine, and food made for a great night!

Thanks all,
Happy New Years!

Ben
01/04/2009

The Scene at the tasting right now!

Terry Theise Grower Champagne tasting!
Here are some shots from the tasting we are hosting right now! Great wines, all growers, and all amazing!

Tad talking about the wines!

Tad talking about the wines! and a better view of the wines
and presentation.
Come taste!

New and Possibly, Soon to be New

Tonight with hangar steak my wife and I drank a new 2007 Cotes de Rhone Village. The full name is about a foot long, and I'm going to call it "Champauvins" until someone tells me I'm getting it wrong. It's in stock and sells for 20 bucks.

Medium bodied. Four distinct flavors, all with decent intensity: Red fruit, dark red fruit, spice, funk.  The funk is the mildest and is apparent only after the wine opens up a bit. Good acidity. No tannin to speak of. Drink now because it's tasty, and hold a few back because its going to improve for a while. Grace A.

One night this past week we drank a bottle of unoaked Chardonnay provided by Karen Conery, our Winebow rep. If I can buy it a the right price, our customers are really going to love this.

Paul
12/20/2009

Winter Storm Wines!

Hello Cold World!
We are in the midst of a blizzard here in NYC! The first and hopefully not the last time we will see real snow here in the city this winter (the city is quite beautiful in the snow!). I thought I'd make some quick wine recommendations for brooding inside, and waiting out a storm.
The First- Leon Barral Faugeres 2006; a great wine made by an amazing winemaker. Naturally farmed and no chemicals or odd processes in the winemaking this blend of southern french grapes is amazingly complex, and will tide you through a few hours of sniffing along with a good book!

Next up-L'etoile Domaine de Montbourgeau Vin Jaune- A wine for working though ideas if ever there was such a thing! Typical color- quite straw colored and yellow, with flavors of almond, quince and hazelnuts. This is delicious and very different wine from the Jura area of L'etoile!

Finally- the next big thing in Italian wine- Aglianico del Vulture from Biscegila. This great grape from the area near Mount Vulture is known for its chocolate and cherry scents, and great texture in the mouth- a true pleasure to drink these wines offer a lot of flavor and interest for very little money!

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the snow!!
Ben
12/19/2009

The best bottle of italian wine I had this year!

I recently was converted to Sicilian wines. I was treated to a bottle of frappato from Ochipenti. I was floored! This wine was so good! light, elegant, with great upfront fruit, hints of tobacco and leather, nice earthy complexity! Totally amazing. The wine is made in a biodynamic way; and frappato is an amazing grape that only grows in Sicily. It is the lightest grape that I've tried from Sicily. We just got in some Frappato from the collective COS. This collective is three winemakers, Giambattista Cilia called Titta, Giusto Occhipinti and Pinuccia Strano. They make wine biodynamically, and really great wine. I am looking forward to trying this wine!
Happy Holidays!
Thanks for reading,
Ben
12/5/9

"it's Too Good to Drink!"

Hi all,
So A tasting group with several of our clients invited me to a dinner entitled "It's Too Good to Drink!". The concept was that we would all bring a bottle or two from our cellars to drink that we would open in no other situation. Several of the gentleman invovled outdid themselves and brought astounding bottles!

The first wine was a great fresh white Bordeaux Chateau de Fieuzal, with a nice flavor showing bothof the grapes of this undervalued style of wine. I was suprised when the vintage was revealed to be a 1993, as the wine was still quite alive!

The second wine was a astoundingly old barolo from Bosca, Il Re Dei vini, A 1962! some of the gentleman felt this was passed its prime, and a little oxidized. I love that style and this wine reminded me of older Lopez de Heredia wines that I have tasted! A truely compelling nose and quite dry but nice on the palate.

The next bottle was the one that I brought from my cellar. Being the wine geek that I am I brought a magnum of one of my favorite producers in burgundy, but from a terrible harvest! The vineyard did well however, as did many sites in Volnay during that year! This wine had a great pinot flavor, and lovely dark color as well as a nice weight to it! Fun burgundy! The fellas got the region overall but guessed a younger year.

The Next four were pretty good! We started this batch with a bottle of haut brion 1996. Unfortunately for my palate the Haut Brion was a little off, like the storage was
not perfect- still, it was impressive wine, with a nose of coco and berries, and just was flat on the palate.
The Pape Clement was a shocker to me, I had tried this wine and found it to austere and a bit to much tobacco in the past- but it showed beautifully! totally plum and cherries, clean with a hint of earth- just great!
Palmer was amazing, as always, and I was just thrilled since it's my birth year! rich, still together, clearly a well cared for bottle that drank just great!

These three did not get me as well - The Marguez wine, a Bernard Marguez wine was well made, just not my thing- it was totally modern, oaky, overextracted and totally intense. Several people liked it a lot- I felt it was too much.
The Etna Rosso was a mystery to me, and I had not much thought about it; not really sure even to provide a good note! (we'd had a lot of good wines by this point!).
The Catina Zacannini showed really quite nicely against a host of other wines, a hint of earth, nice fruit and very smooth, this wine was a bit of a ringer; but held itself up well against a lot of other (and rather more expensive) wines.
 
The first two dessert wines, a sauternes; and a muscadelle. The Sauternes was intense, rich, and sweet- and went well with the cheese course. The Muscadelle is much more of a palate cleanser. Sweet, yet balanced with a little lift of bubbles. A pretty nose, and a nice flavor. I liked this wine a lot.
There was a final bottle- a vin santo that was pretty amazing as well- and was accompanied by the traditional biscotti!
All in all another great meal- Thanks so much for having me gentleman!
Ben

Marquis de la Tour

Last night, to go with Spaghetti Carbonara, we had a bottle of Marquis de la Tour Brut sparkling wine from France's Loire Valley. It isn't Champagne, which is far to the East, and isn't made with the same grapes. Still, it's very good, and very inexpensive. It has good acidity, good flavors, and the carbonation helps cut through the richness of the egg and cheese.

Paul
11/10/2009

Chateau Musar

Hi all,
Yesterday I was honored to attend a tasting of Chateau Musar wines at Hearth. This tasting was hosted by Serge Honchar, the owner of the Chateau. Musar is a winery located in the Bekka valley, Lebanon! The wines are unique, natural and Bordeaux influenced for reds, and totally amazing indigenous grape blends for whites. The wines are built to age- especially the white wines. Current release for the Musar Red is 1999; and the same for the White!
In this tasting we tasted several older vintages in a seminar format. It was great fun to taste these with the owner who gave us a lovely running commentary.

The vintages and tasting notes for each wine are below:
Musar Red:
2000- Color was pretty, red, and not fading at all. The nose was full of berries and some complex minerality. On the palate, this wine was smooth and plush with ample tannins and bright acidity.
1995- This wine was much darker red, with just a hint of brown at the edges. The nose was full of toast and oak with vanilla. The taste was more intense and tannic, with much more wood in the mouth.
1981- Brown in color this wine was fresh at first, but  oxidized quite fast- it was faulted for this by several of the tasters, and by Serge as well. He said "I like when I wine has problems, it is good to talk about it, and most winemakers won't dare to! I find this still pleasurable, and it still has something to say"
1972- Brick red in color this wine carried a lovely orange edge to it. Scents of berries and nuts with good mineral and complexity . .  and real smoothness to the taste, with a few minutes of waiting.
1966- The final red of the tasting, I wanted to share with you Serge's comment about this "A good wine has something to say, a great wine will give you a few minutes of conversation, a truly great wine will speak for hours!" This was amazing- oak, smooth, fruit, mineral, and all of this was despite a slight corky-ness!

Now on to the whites!!
The grapes are unique to the Bekka valley, and Mountain Lebanon. Obeideh and Merwah are the names and are very very special. I'd just like to highlight the 1959 white which was still very fresh, alive, and had amazing complexity- a sublime experiance tasting these with the owner of the estate and several famous wine profesionals from New York.

Thanks,
Ben

two days of south of france tastings!

Hi all,
So for those of you paying attention to our tasting schedule we had two very special tastings over the last two days. I would like to post my tasting notes to you for these special Sud France festival in NYC tastings.

Night one we played host to the always charming Phil S. from Kermit Lynch wines. We love their wines, and its always fun to have them here. The weather was bad, but we sold a lot of great wines!

The wines we tasted were:
Chateau La Roque Benadictins coteaux de Languedoc Blanc:
A lightly oaked complex dry rich white made from Rolle, Marsanne and Roussanne grapes from very old vines. The vineyard was first planted by the Benadictine monks! This was lemon, mineral and a bread notes. Great!

Gris de Gris Domaine De Fonsainte Corbieres:
A great rose, with notes of orange, strawberries and good length for the low price it sells at. This was the first Rose I bought this year, and perhaps will be on of the last roses that I drink (its really started to be red wine weather!).

Domaine De Terrebrune Bandol Rouge:
From half bottle!
Bandols often are my favorite wines from the provance area! This wine is meaty, dry, with a bit of funk, and a lot of herbs and spice as well as a lovely core of fruit to it. A great bottle for the lunch box!

And the two stars of the night:
Domaine Leon Barral Faugueres
Leon Barral is a great small winery run completely naturally, by Didier Barral. The domaine is named for his grandfather. The production is done in a quite unique way- one third of the vinyard space is held as grazing space for his herd of cattle (his assitants!), and this is rotated every year or two. The wines are big, intense, yet totally balanced and beautiful with big upfront fruit and great drinkablity young! We tasted two.
Domaine Leon Barral Faugueres:
This cuvee is a four grape blend of syrah, mouvedre carignan and grenache. A great easy to drink wine very nice finish. Nice complexity from the notes of tar and tobacco.

Domaine Leon Barral Faugueres Jadis:
Jadis is a cuvee made from 80% Syrah. Delicous, a bit more gamey and a bit richer, this is also quite good to drink now, though I think it will age a lot more as well.

Next up, Day two- a multi vendor showdown of natural wines from the south of France!

The scene at our recent tasting!

Hi all,
Here is the scene from our last major tasting of burgundy- with importer Jeanne-Marie Deschamps.
This tasting was a lot of fun, but very crowded. We apologize for anyone who had issues with the rather large crowd.

This  is Jeanne-Marie explaining passionately her wines.

And, again- just a moment later- explaining the soil
differences for each of the wines poured! A paramount
issue in Burgundy!

This is our General Manager Evelyn Wing and her family-
our special guests for this event!

Cheers,
Ben