Veramonte Organic Wines and Patagonia Provisions

Viñedos Organicos Veramonte is a leading producer of 100% organic and sustainable wines from Chile. A true believer in Living Soils, they maintain a natural balance in the ecosystem of their vineyards, and stimulate the soil's biodiversity using all natural practices. Patagonia Provisions out of California practices regenerative organic farming for their food products, from their grains to their fish. Sooooo... what a perfect pairing for Earth Day these two make!

Veramonte's vineyards are in Casablanca Valley, enjoying a cool climate close to the Pacific Ocean. I've got the Pinot Noir pictured with the Patagonia Provisions Black Pepper Wild Pink Salmon. Let me tell ya... that Salmon is AWESOME! It comes in two thin plastic packages inside the box that don't take up much space at all in a backpack or what have you. In fact, all of the Patagonia fish products here are perfect for camping and hiking. The Roasted Garlic Mackerel, Spicy White Anchovies, and Smoked Mussels come in classic anchovy cans.

The Veramonte Pinot Noir saw eight months in French oak barrels. It's light and bright with raspberries, cherries, and its perky acidity is met well with a balancing out of tannin. 15% of the Chardonnay was aged in oak barrels for eight months. It's creamy and shows notes of melon and pears. Both of these are delicious, but my favorite is the Sauvignon Blanc. I'm a sucker for a good Chilean Sauvie, and this one features oranges, lemon, and flowers. Yummy!

HAPPY EARTH DAY, EVERYBODY!

Get some Veramonte wine: https://vinedosveramonte.cl/vinedosorganicos

Get some Patagonia Provisions: https://www.patagoniaprovisions.com/

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The blog turns 10!

And so I did...

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Firriato Cavanera Etna Rosso Rovo Delle Coturnie 2018

This wine is calling out for a porkchop. Not only is it a single vineyard wine, but the vineyard is dedicated to producing this label only. Right away it's pretty clear that it's mostly Nerello Mascalese, but the other grape involved is Nerello Cappuccio. It has a lighter body weight, bright acidity, and fine-grained tannin. There's a nice minerality with metallic notes of iron and nickel, rustic notes of barnyard and damp earth, and then there's fruit roll-up with a strawberry finish. Very nice and enjoyable; not bad at all for the average price of $35.

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Firriato Ribeca Perriconen 2016

Myself having Sicilian ancestry, the wines of Sicily hold a special place in my heart. And here I have a Sicilian wine that I don't believe I've ever had before as a labeled varietal! It's called Perricone, a native grape to the island that is permitted as a varietal in some regions, is a good blending buddy with Nero d'Avola, and is one of the grapes blended in the Rubino style of Marsala.

I couldn't decide what I would incorrectly guess this wine was if I had tasted it blind. For a moment I thought I'd say Shiraz, the next I thought I'd say Right Bank Bordeaux. It's definitely different... but it's got balls. Mocha, burnt caramel, walnut, and black olive are heavy on the nose, with a whiff of rosemary and clove. On the palate there's tart plum, cherry, and leather. It's got a medium body with moderate acidity but even at eight years old the finish is tight and astringent, dominated by oak and spice. This lady still has a life ahead of her to smooth out.

I'm seeing anywhere from $33 to $40 for this, and that's exactly where it should be. Good stuff!

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Book Review: "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" by Tom Standage (2005)

 

"Drinks have a closer connection to the flow of history than is generally acknowledged, and a greater influence on its course."

This really isn't a "review" I guess, but just a little "hey, this book exists, check it out!" It was published all the way back in 2005 and I recently picked it up at my local library.

The book is hella fun. It's called "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" and goes through the history of mankind broken down into the beverages at the time they ruled the world above all else. From beer in the stone age, to wine, to distilled spirits, to coffee, to tea, to the soda of today.

It goes over how and why the beverage rose to be so popular, the culture and consumption habits of those who drank them, and how they changed the course of history. There are so many cool things in here that I never knew, such as coffee houses creating the stock exchange and tea being the drink that fueled the Industrial Revolution. As a history nerd in the beverage industry, I loved it. 

"Baths, wine and sex ruin our bodies. But what makes life worth living except baths, wine and sex?" - Corpus Inscriptionis VI, 15258

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Book Review: "Ancient Wine: the Search for the Origins of Viniculture" by Patrick E. McGovern

I hope you like pottery! Like, really really like pottery! A lot! Because that's what Ancient Wine by Patrick E. McGovern is pretty much all about. This is because when you go back thousands and thousands of years, before writing, all we can hope to know about ancient wine is through the pottery that survived and the residue that remains within.

Patrick E. McGovern is the scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. According to this book, he and his laboratory have made some pretty incredible discoveries on the ancient history of wine, including the discovery that wine has been around for thousands of years before we thought.

Ancient Wine doesn't read like a story about wine, starting from the beginning and moving forward. Ancient Wine reads like the story of McGovern's career, going in the order of as things were revealed to him through his work. Although McGovern TRIES to keep it by place and time, it very much does bounce around all over the place a lot, so going into this it helps to know your ancient Mediterranean and Mesopotamian civilizations and their timelines.

Not only does Ancient Wine go into the history of wine (and beer, as well) in ancient times, but also the science behind the knowledge and technology that we use today to find what kind of beverage was in that pottery and how we know how old it is. Very, very cool book that will teach you a lot of very, very cool things you didn't know you wanted know.

(Originally published in 2003, this reprint from 2019 includes an Afterword by the author to catch you up on all of the updates in what we have learned and what is new in archaeological technology since the original printing.)

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Lifted Supreme Citrus and Dark

I was lucky enough to try this stuff before purchase and liked it enough to go online and buy full bottles. Lifted Supreme is basically a non-alcoholic "spirit" with THC, and is more like a liqueur than anything. The Citrus tastes just like Mountain Dew (yummy!) and the Dark has brown spice flavors like cinnamon and nutmeg. You can make cocktails with these or just shoot it! For what I want to get out of this kind of thing, a 1.5 ounce shot is good enough, and two shots is too much. I'm new to the whole "weed is legal" thing, so I'm not really sure what else you really want to know about it other than it's up to 42.5 mg of THC in each bottle.

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Book Review: "Alcohol: The World's Favorite Drug" by Griffith Edwards (2000)

 "Alcohol: The World's Favorite Drug" was published in 2000, one year before I was legal to drink. I heard about it in the past month when it was mentioned in the book "Drunk" (read my review of that book here), and I was able to purchase a used copy online that once called Richards Library in Newport, New Hampshire, home.

The author of Alcohol is Griffith Edwards; an MD whose work is on the study of addiction to alcohol and other drugs, and you can definitely tell. The book is kind of misleading in title, as it focuses on alcohol dependency most of the time. And it does so very effectively, especially when it talks about alcohol dependency from the viewpoint of the dependent; how they think about it and the excuses they tell themselves.

It is not misleading in saying that it's "a look at fact and falsehoods, and how to tell the difference." There are many things that we all think we know about the history of alcohol that simply aren't true, but we've been conditioned into believing them by rhetoric from the anti-alcohol and pro-alcohol movements and industries.

"Alcohol is a fact around which are created myths, and those myths themselves then become powerful facts."

With the 90th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition upon us, let's use that as an example. The Gin Craze in eighteenth century England was really really bad, but nothing has touched alcohol abuse as much as America in the 1830's. This is when the US was at 18 liters per capita in consumption, whiskey was cheaper than tea and coffee, and there certainly was fair enough grounds for a temperance movement to grow. At first this movement was just against distilled spirits, but the conditions in the 1830's lead it to be against any alcohol at all, such as beer and wine

Fast forward 90 years, with many events and individual state prohibitions in between, what was a valid movement against a very real problem had become the myth that all alcohol consumption is evil and the cause of all of mankind's woes, which is simply not true but many still believe. This all lead to the US national Prohibition. Over the next decade and beyond, the anti-Prohibitionists blamed speakeasies and organized crime and bootlegging on Prohibition, and even though those existed long before Prohibition, this is rhetoric we still believe. Fascinatingly, calling alcoholism a disease started in the 1800's but faded in the early 1900's... but then it was revived by the anti-Prohibitionists to say "hey, it's not the alcohol that's the problem, it's YOU!"

"With intoxication, there is the supposed removal of decent civilizing restraint when those centres (autonomic nervous system) are anaesthetized by alcohol and the more primitive parts of the brain are allowed to take over control of the behavior. Often there seems to be more of a metaphor than of brain science in this kind of theory."

So yes, the book explains how facts turn into myth and then myth into facts as we know them, and it does it very well with each topic it touches.

Alcohol is basically a book about "to-drink-or-not-to-drink", a history of alcohol dependency and abuse, and then even recovery. So while it claims to be neither for or against the consumption of alcohol, and it proves that many times by staying with facts and keeping opinions in the grey area, the outcome of everything that it discusses weighs heavily on the downside of drinking over the upside. Honestly, that's where that facts go in science and history. (Drunk goes into how important drinking is to our social needs as humans, but still comes to the same conclusion in physical health costs.)

Thus, it is a very powerful book for those who need to quit, want to quit, struggling to be sober, or successful in sobriety.

It can be anyone. "... proneness to develop alcohol dependence does not have any single master explanation to cover every individual. It is not a matter of some people being doomed to alcohol dependence by their genes while the rest of us drink with impunity. And for any one individual no simple causal explanation is likely to suffice."

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Silver Oak wine dinner at The Port in Harwich, Cape Cod - October 5th, 2023

On the fifth of October this year I attended a wine dinner with Silver Oak's Matt Katz. Luke's of Cape Cod (of which I am the marketer) helped put it on at The Port Restaurant + Bar in Harwich, MA. It was a whole lot of fun! And the wines, food, and the pairings of the two were incredible. Pics or it didn't happen!

First Course: Scallop Risotto

Sea scallops, smoked bacon and corn risotto with fresh thyme and scallions
TWOMEY SAUVIGNON BLANC

Second Course: Coccoli Fritti

Prosciutto, fried dough, ricotta cheese with olive oil

TWOMEY PINOT NOIR

Third Course: Beef Ravioli
in al a vodka sauce

SILVER OAK NAPA VALLEY CABERNET SAUVIGNON

Fourth Course: Beef Tenderloin

Seared roasted beef tenderloin served with a rich wine sauce
TIMELESS BY SILVER OAK

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Horizon Beverage tasting in Boston - October 3rd, 2023

Photos from the Horizon Beverage tasting in Boston on October 3, 2023.

 

Mount Veeder Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon,
Shrader RBS To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2019

La Nerth Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2019, Norton Privada 2016,
Purple Angel 2020, Croft Vintage Porto 2016

Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon 2020, Marques de Casa Concha Heritage 2020,
The Butler 2020


Achaval Ferrer Altamira 2019, Achaval Ferrer Malbec 2020,
Achaval Ferrer Quimersa 2019, Hacienda de Arinzano

Donnafugata Ben Ryé Passito di Pantelleria

The Vineyard House Block 5 Cabernet Franc 2018,
Alpha Omega Cabernet Sauvignon 2019, Kinsella Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

Palladino Ornato Borolo 2018, SCEG Aglianico del Vulture 2019,
Fattoria Rodano Chianti Classico 2019

Herman J. Wiemer Gewurztraminer 2020, Herman J. Wiemer Dry Riesling 2021,
Herman J. Wiemer Semi-Dry Riesling 2021,
Herman J. Wiemer Field White Table Wine, Fallegro Gianni Gagliardo

Merriam Vineyards Late Harvest Red Wine (Cabernet Franc) 2017


Champagne Autréau Rosé Brut, Domain Langoux Pouilly Fume 2022,
Chateau Des Tours Brouilly

Mexican Wine: Casa Magoni Origen 43 2020, Laberinto Vino Tinto Blend,
El Bajio Marselan Red Wine, Tré Sangiovese


Mexican Wine: Parvada Tinto 2020, Bruma Ocho Reserva Mezcla 2020

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