I took the opportunity to visit Kerloo Cellars in Seattle, they are located in the Sodo Urban Works complex off of 1st Ave. (3911 1st Ave. South). It’s a cool location that is home to at least 8 wineries. Some are simply tasting rooms and some like Kerloo Cellars actually make their wine there. If you are in Seattle and have some time, check it out, it’s worth the stop (really easy to find). Kerloo Cellars is my 2017 Winery of The Year, so I wanted to go down and see the winery and interview Ryan Crane for my You Tube channel. It was a fun interview and Ryan expressed his wine making philosophy and how he got to where he is today. I will be putting that up on You Tube tomorrow. If you haven’t tried his wines yet, you are missing out on some of the best I’ve tasted out of Washington State.
As our South Africa trip inches closer and closer, I feel a little tightness in my gut. It is only two and a half months away! It’s a place I am very excited to visit, but at the same time, it is a hell of a long way across the globe. Come to find out, Cape Town is experiencing a serious water shortage and may have tight restrictions around the time we get there if they don’t get some rain. Susie and I will just go with the flow (no pun intended) and do whatever is required. However, the timing is impeccable. Our itinerary still has a couple of gaps, but over-all we are booked up. We will be visiting at least three wineries, possibly four. I will be shooting quite a bit of footage to put up on You Tube. It will be fun times and there will be lots of new experiences and beautiful scenery.
Speaking of S.A., at a recent tasting event, it was a South African wine that stole the show and it was only eight bucks. Seriously! It was the 2015 Indaba Mosaic, a red blend that had quite a bit of Petit Verdot. The interesting thing about this wine is the need to decant it before it comes out in full bloom. I believe it is the Petit Verdot that needed the breathing time. It’s good straight out of the bottle, but give it some time and…WOW! The ’16 and ’17 vintages do not have that much P.V. in them so I will have to give a report on how they are doing. The ’15 vintage looks to be sold out, no doubt due to my wine group.
I am very curious as to why putting banana in the descriptor of a wine seems to turn people off. I believe it is because people associate banana with sweet, so they think the wine has a sweeter side. Time for me to clarify. A wine can have the flavor of banana or peach or whatever and it doesn’t have anything to do with the sweetness of the wine. I know it can be hard to wrap your mind around this concept. I like to use the example of vanilla. Vanilla extract smells sweet. However if you take a hit off a bottle, sweet is not what you get. Flavor is a flavor and has nothing to do with sugar levels. The problem is that a majority of wine shoppers do not understand this, so I leave banana off my descriptor nine times out of ten. If anyone can come up with a better explanation, I would be happy to hear it.
Roger Federer won the Australian Open this past weekend and it seems to me to be a bad omen for the upcoming Super Bowl. Roger, like the Patriots has won his fair share of championships, albeit on his own. If the Patriots win, it will be a team effort not an individual effort. However, my point is that I think Roger winning is a sign that the Patriots will again be Super Bowl champions. Of course you all know I loathe the Patriots and hope the Eagles can pull off a victory. As it stands now, my prediction for the Super Bowl is…. Patriots 35 – Eagles 28. I only hope that I’m wrong, and will have to eat my words in my next Bits & Bobs.
Cheers!
Stan The Wine Man
