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Tag: spirits

  • We Toast October 2022 with Victorine de Chastenay Cremant de Bourgogne Brut Rose

    This month our toast will be with a bottle of Victorine de Chastenay Cremant de Bourgogne Brut Rose. This was an easy choice since we found it in a favorite wine shop Formaggio South End. This shop offers the best of so many food options, including a small but well-curated wine selection.

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    This bottle was in the cooler, chilled and ready for an impromptu celebration. It was 100% pinot noir, a favorite with us. It was a pinot noir from Burgundy, one of our favorite sources for this grape. The back label had what we considered a seal of approval, the logo of Skurnik Wines & Spirits, an importer we trust! Since this bottle made it through all those selection gateways and was priced at $22.95, we knew it would be a great value.

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    Skurnik Wine and Spirits wrote that great value was their reason for importing this wine.

    "Not all Crémant de Bourgogne are created equal. We at Skurnik have searched for years for a Crémant de Bourgogne that can deliver the quality and value that the Skurnik name has come to represent. With Victorine de Chastenay, they have found that rare combination. Long an afterthought for many producers in Burgundy, these delicious sparklers come from fruit in the Côtes de Nuits and Côtes De Beaune in Burgundy (a welcome contrast to most Crémant de Bourgognes that are made from fruit in the Mâconnais, Beaujolais, and Côte Chalonnaise). From the complex and refreshing Brut Blanc to the 100% Pinot Noir Brut Rosé, these wines are made completely in tank to preserve the minerality and freshness of the Côte d’Or fruit and are aged on the lees for 20 months before release (the minimum for the appellation is 12 months!). It is rare to find Crémants of such pedigree and quality at a value price and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have you try them."

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    We purchase our bottle at Formaggio South End for $22.95.

    Trying wines from different places, made with different grapes, and produced by different methods adds spice to our monthly ritual. Since 2007 we have raised a glass of sparkling wine to greet each new month!

    Related Posts:

    Our Sparkling Resolution is covered in this post : Join Us as We Toast…

    A Few of Our Favorite Gifts for Wine Lovers

    Here are all the wines we've covered. Since this is a category, this post may appear at the top. Just scroll down for more.

    What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

    Details:

    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photos: ©2020 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

  • The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine: Book Review

    With our sparkler of the month on March 1st, we mentioned that we had put The Food Lover's Guide to Wine on our book wish list. That afternoon, we received an email from the authors Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg saying they would love to send us a review copy. 

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    It arrived a few days later and hasn't made it to a bookshelf yet. It has spent a few nights beside the bed as Penny's relaxation reading, we've used it explore a couple of new wines, and we're planning to feature some recommended producers as our Sparkler of the Month.

    Learn in various ways from a collection of great wine lovers.

    • If you were hanging outside our door, you might have heard us reading quotes from the book to one another. It has the greatest collection of quotes from wine lovers and wine experts you can imagine. Boston's own Cat Silirie is often cited.
    • Ed loves the pronunciation guide in the core listing of wines, grapes, and wine topics.
    • The system used to emphasize the importance of wine grapes, characteristics, and producers (by using bold and all caps in lists) is brillant and intuitive to use.
    • The end chapters on matching wines with foods, cuisines, and courses will have us exploring new options.
    • We love the gold boxes with great asides on topics. A few are already marked with page tabs. 
    • Since these writers believe that the wine you like is the right wine for you, they've prepared a series of recommendations based on your own taste. If you like a flavor, for example almonds, they give you a list of wines to try. If you like a particular wine, they give you others with similar flavor profiles.

    A Great Interview Grabbed Our Attention 

    We first hear about The Food Lover's Guide to Wine on the Heritage Radio Network show, A Taste of the Past. Penny listens to podcasts of food shows while she cooks, and this one was good enough for a shared listen during an afternoon of crab-cracking and conversation.

    Host Linda Pelaccio began by covering the history of American Wine (the book contains a timeline) and then a discussion of the book that really gave us an insight to the authors' points of view and how this book would fit into our collection. Here's a link to that show.

    Meet the authors and hear what some experts say about this book.

     

    We are not only recommending this book to our readers, we'll be buying copies as gifts for wine-loving friends. It is a treasure and we expect it to look a bit worn and well-used pretty quickly. It may even suffer a few wine stains but we doubt that Karen and Andrew will mind.

    Here are more books from this team:

    The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs  

    What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea – Even Water – Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers

    Becoming a Chef

    and of course

    The Food Lover's Guide to Wine

    Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

     

    Details:
    Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
    Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino  

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