by whitney on August 31, 2010
Luis Moya is the owner/importer of Vinos Unico and he brings in some great value (and delicious) wines from Portugal, Spain and Argentina as well as making wine right here in California. Luis is Cuban…but he sure knows how to make a mean paella. He and his crew were in LA making the rounds this past weekend showcasing the portfolio and they made a stop at Rosso Wine Shop. Luis arrived hours before the tasting with a car full of fresh seafood, spices and rice from The Spanish Table in Berkeley, some giant paella pans and a bad ass double ring burner made just for paella cookin’.
And now- the evolution of the paella…
One of the wines of the night- 2007 Luis Pato Baga from Portugal. And yes, baga is the name of the grape!
Also on hand for pouring- 2009 Murahlas Vinho Verde rosé (one of my favs this summer), 2009 Luis Pato Maria Gomes, NV Capote Velho and many more. Safe to say everyone had a full belly and always a full glass.
And then these wine loving guys pulled up and decided to play an impromptu live concert!
Fun times! Gracias Luis for your hospitality, contagious energy and lively spirit, great wines and of course- your paella.
by whitney on August 29, 2010
I often like to think of a wine beyond the sometimes limiting vocabulary of “the tasting note.” When I’m tasting a new wine and trying to remember what it’s like, I tend to jot down notes of colors or moods. Or clothes. I daydream about what I would wear while drinking that wine or what the physical embodiment of that wine might be. I thought it would be fun for a moment to share with you the pictures I’ve captured in my brain for some of the wines in my cellar. The following is a lookbook. A lookbook of wines. Alternately, wine through the lens of fashion… if I wanna get real serious with it.
2009 Domaine Sainte Lucie MiP Cotes du Provence Rosé
Edmunds St. John Heart of Gold (vermentino/grenache blanc), El Dorado County
2005 Hidden Ridge Sonoma County cabernet sauvignon
Model: Bianca de Blancheblanc (Agency: Winehemina). Hair and Makeup: Invisi Jones for Headless Salon. Wardrobe: Polyvore
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If you want to see some other unorthodox wine tasting notes/match-ups, you can check out my experiment in Reality TV wine pairing as well as a look at 3 women’s impressions of the same wine here.
And one last beauty shot of the punt of the MiP. Just ’cause.
by whitney on August 25, 2010
You lovely readers just met the cool Proof Wine Collective dudes Philip and Josh the other day. Well, when those super nice human beings were recently in LA, they brought me a gift.
Er- 3 gifts.
3 bottles of some rare Santa Ynez pinot- 1979, 1980 and 1981 Sanford & Benedict pinot noir. I know. They’re nice. What possessed them to give it to little old me? I’m only coming up with “I’m lucky.” But, the real question is how in the hell they actually acquired these bottles. Josh said…
We got them from an old cellar of Michael Benedict. Who I am told didn’t want to have anything to do with the wine. Either he thought the wine was dead or the memories of the partnership with Richard was too painful/sad to keep in his life. They are some of the last vintages of S&B wines ever made.
I did a bit of digging and poking around to learn a bit more about these two Sanford and Benedict guys and why they only produced 5 vintages together. They planted their namesake vineyard 39 years ago…apparently the first pinot noir vineyard in the region- between Lompoc and Buellton (source.) According to the book North American Pinot Noir by John Winthrop Haeger, the pair made their first wines with “portable electric power and gas lamps, in an old rustic barn uphill from the vineyard” and that the “first fermentors, made of wood, were said to have been built in a friend’s hot tub factory.” (!)
Sad to say, but their partnership dissolved for whatever reason in 1980. Therefore, I have the last remains of what was the work of these two men together. Sanford went on to make wines under his own label and Benedict sold fruit from the vineyard to other winemakers. The vineyard was eventually sold to a British couple in 1988, but they continued to give Sanford some amount of access to the fruit for his wines.
So- when should I drink this stuff ? Do I drink them all together and compare vintages? Do I save my birth year ‘81 for the big 3-0 bday next year? I don’t know! But I do know I am excited to see what lies within those bottles. Will it be any good? Will the ghosts of friendship past float up and out in a cloud of tears and heartbreak? Or, maybe instead a sense of possibility and magic and the beginning of things? I’ll have to find out.
PS- how cool is wine?
by whitney on August 20, 2010
Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting a few guys whose work I’ve been admiring for a few months now.
Meet Josh McFadden and Phillip Muzzy. They are the founders and super talented brains behind Proof Wine Collective based out of San Luis Obispo. In their own words:
Proof Wine Collective is a collaboration that emerged to create an unequaled atmosphere for new ideas about wine. It exists to nurture innovation, fuse thinking with enthusiasm to develop original concepts until they become tangible creations. Proof is comprised of an eclectic group of creative individuals who want to make the wine industry better and who have built their lives around wine. They have come to this place from varied backgrounds including winemaking, print production, graphic arts, journalism, wine sales and restaurant and sommelier experience.
So, basically they’re cool and they design kick ass labels. I always think it’s so unfortunate when there’s a really great wine inside a really crappy package. Not so when Proof has anything to do with it. They realize that a lot of consumers buy wine based on label alone. Which is sad, but true; us humans are superficial. Like people, we judge our wine on outside appearance first. Sometimes never getting beyond a bad label to see the “beauty within.” It’s great when there is a marriage between the image and artistic representation of a wine and the wine itself. Proof achieves this. A few of my favorite Proof labels….
Keep up the good work boys!
All photos courtesy of Proof Wine Collective
