Wine Bar: Articles

Aug

08

Cork Wine Bar DC: Not Your Typical Rosé Flight

Wine  Written by / 2 comments

Over the last few weeks, I’ve tried several new Rosés at local wine bars. The HOT summer makes it perfect Rosé weather.

Visiting Cork Wine Bar in DC, I tried this interesting Rosé flight…

  • Schlossgut Diel Rosé Diel 2011, Nahe wine region of Germany: Made of Pinot Noir, or Spätburgunder as it’s called in Germany, this is a nice full-bodied wine with plum, pepper and spice notes. Not your typical notes in a Rosé.
  • Hexamer Spätburgunder Weissherbst Halbtrocken 2010, Nahe region of Germany: This wine is very pale in color, almost a yellow-green and didn’t look like a Rosé at all. With pear and lime notes, it actually got sweeter the wine became more room temperature.
and my favorite…

Heidi Schröck Rosé Biscaya 2011

  • Variety: Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah from Austria
  • Aroma: floral and red fruit
  • Taste: Rich dark red berry and white tea with a minerality finish
  • My thoughts: This is a lovely complex Austrian Rosé made in the Bandol style (Provence, France). Check out her website as Heidi looks like a very cool winemaker!

These were three very interesting and different Rosé styles. It’s neat to see all the different things winemakers can do with Rosé. As I’ve said before, give pink another think. :)

Cheers to Rosé!

Tagged As:
, , , , , ,

Aug

04

Screwtop Wine Bar: Every Rosé Has Its Thorn

Wine  Written by / 0 comments

It’s hot which is perfect Rosé weather as it’s light, crisp and refreshing wine, and a pretty pink shade. Over the last few weeks I’ve tried several new Rosés at local wine bars.

Last night I finally visited Screwtop Wine Bar in Clarendon, a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia. Their motto…drink what you like. So I had Rosé from the Every Rosé Has Its Thorn line up…one from Germany, France and Austria.

  • Villa Wolf Pinot Noir Rosé 2011, Pfalz, Germany
  • Mittelbach Zweitgeit 2011, Burgenland-Austria: Round strawberry taste
  • Chinon Rosé Cabernet Franc 2011, Loire Valley, France: Heaviest in body of the three with a tart cranberry taste

My favorite of the bunch…

Villa Wolf Pinot Noir Rosé 2011

  • Variety: Pinot Noir from Pfalz, Germany
  • Aroma: Crisp berty
  • Taste: Bright zippy cranberry and raspberry
  • Price: $12.99
  • My thoughts: This was my favorite Rosé because of its fruit forward taste with a truly zippy finish. The wine is a J.L. Wolf, part of the Dr. Loosen wine family. Ernst Loose’ s goal at J.L. Wolf is to make powerful, traditionally crafted Pfalz wines (drier and more full bodied Rieslings as well as Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Gewürztraminer and Silvaner. ) to complement his lighter Dr. Loosen wines from the Mosel (Rieslings that are higher alcohol and ripe flavors of fruit and stone).

Screwtop is featuring German wines throughout August including this one. I really enjoyed our time at Screwtop. More to come on it in an upcoming series, What Makes a Great Wine Bar?

Prost to Rosé!

Tagged As:
, , , , , , , ,

Apr

27

Eat, Drink, Simply at The Wine Kitchen

Wine  Written by / 0 comments

After antique shopping in Frederick, Maryland this weekend and a stop in Frederick Cellars, we ended up the sunny day turned rainy at The Wine Kitchen. Open since October, this is the second location for Mike Mercer and Jason Miller who own the three-year-old restaurant / wine bar by the same name in Leesburg. The Wine Kitchen’s motto…Eat, Drink, Simply.

Sitting in a lovely spot on Carroll Creek Way, a creek turned canal and park, they have a great patio location for guests to enjoy the scenery (Bryan Voltaggio’s Lunchbox is just next door) and inside is a Sonoma / French feel wine café. We sat at the bar for a wine flight and some bites.

The Italian Renaissance flight we chose consisted of the 2010 Borgo M Fruilano from Friuli, 2010 Vigneti Massa Sentieri Barbera from Piedmonte and 2008 Marabino Noto Nero d’Avola from Sicily. Each flight and glass of wine comes with a very thoughtful and colorful tasting card.

All the wines in our flight were very flavorful but our favorite was…

2010 Vigneti Massa Sentieri Barbera

  • Varietal: Barbera
  • Aroma: Cherry, tobacco
  • Taste: Tart cherry, caraway seeds, pipe tobacco
  • Price: $4 taste, $10 glass, $33 bottle
  • My thoughts: The tasting card was right on with this one…caraway seeds?!? It sure had hints of them. This Barbera was lighter than I expected but with its multi-layers, a perfect stand alone or food pairing wine.

I also tried a taste of their 2009 Domanie des Nuges Gamay from Beaujolais, France. Cranberry on the nose and palate with a hint of orange. The tasting card read ‘the red ruby slippers of wine’ which was right on… it sparkled in the glass and on the tongue.

The warm curry cashews and artisinal cheese plate were perfect as were the staff! The menu looked delicious and definitely worth a try on our next stop in Frederick.

Cheers to Eat, Drink, Simply!

Tagged As:
, , , , , ,

Feb

21

URBAN Enoteca, The Next Generation Wine Bar

Wine  Written by / 0 comments

Check out my article in Palate Press on this next generation wine bar in Seattle, Washington.

Palate Press is a modern electronic wine magazine, providing the most exciting and interesting wine content available today. Visit their site, follow them on Twitter and Facebook, and download their free iPad app for their magazine.

 

Tagged As:
, , , ,

Jan

31

Manhattan’s Urban Winery

Travel / Wine  Written by / 0 comments

Finally made it to City Winery in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood on Sunday after reading about them for several years! What a cool spot…part winery (they make wine on-site), part restaurant/wine bar, part concert venue.

We stopped into The Barrel Room, a tasting room and 30-seat restaurant, within this huge facility for some wine and apps. They feature eleven wines on tap (very cool!) made right in the facility pumped up from the cellar downstairs. No bottles, no labels, no added sulfites! Rather than bottling all of their wines, winemaker French David Lecomte, puts the finished wines into stainless steel kegs. After every pour, their tap system preserves the wine with a thin layer of argon gas, keeping every pour fresh with not waste. We also had some great bites to go with the wine. Our two favorites wines after tasting most of them…

Sohovignon Blanc 2010

  • Grape Variety: Sauvignon Blanc organically grown from Windrem Vineyard, Lake County, CA
  • Aroma: Bright, melon
  • Taste: Lively, bright, notes of pineapple, kiwi and melon
  • My thoughts: Love the name, a nod to SoHo :) Stainless steel aging gave it a great crispness and enhanced the fruit notes. Also bought a bottle to bring home.

Petit Syrah 2010

  • Grape Variety: 100% Petit Syrah from Vino con Brio, Lido, CA
  • Aroma: Raspberries, vanilla
  • Taste: Dark fruit of black raspberries and plums rounded with sweet vanilla oak notes
  • My thoughts: Nice round dark fruit wine with several layers and hints of vanilla

The even cooler thing about City Winery is YOU can make your very own wine here! Through their “Barrel Ownership” program, members pick their grapes, participate in the crush, pick their barrels for aging (French or American oak), work with City Winery’s winemaking team through its development, pull samples for tasting as it matures (from six to twenty-four months), blend if necessary, then chose bottle style, closure and design their label. Grape selection includes Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Roussane, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Merlot from some of the finest vineyards in the U.S. (California, Oregon and New York), Chile and Argentina. Membership starts at Barrel Share (36 bottles for $1,800) and goes up to Corporate Barrel Owner (252 bottles for $12,000).

City Winery also is a concert venue (where you can also have dinner), has private event space, offers wine tasting classes and now offers tours of the facility.

Check it out next time you’re in SoHo. Cheers to wine in the city!

Tagged As:
, , , , , ,