I pulled off my first virtual tasting event on Zoom earlier in May. Trey Busch, owner and wine maker at Sleight Of Hand Cellars did an awesome job presenting his wines and the wines themselves were stellar. The Cab Franc Rose’ was dry and delicious with some herbal notes thrown in. My favorite of the bunch was the Archimage. It’s a Bordeaux style red blend that comes as close to Bordeaux as you can in the new world. The 2016 is drinking great now, but will improve over the next 10-15 years. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth the investment. It was so nice to get together on Zoom with my wine group after a two month recess. Everyone who participated thought it was a fun and educational experience. Now, it’s on to June where Rob Griffin will join us on Zoom. This will be Rob’s fourth time addressing my wine group. It was like pulling teeth to get him to the island the first time. Now he loves doing it. I’m sure he’ll miss coming to our island, but at least he will have another chance to share his knowledge and wines with us in a virtual way.
I had a slight hiccup on my YouTube channel and missed an entire week putting up a new episode. I can’t figure out how it happened, because I have been consistent of late. I’m experiencing a lot of traction with my channel and I hope to hit 300 followers soon. If you could help me out with this I would appreciate it. My recent episodes include a review of Bordeaux Blancs (the other sort of Sauvignon Blanc) and a review of Barbera which I believe makes a fantastic wine for BBQ. I really enjoy teaching a bit about the wine world and finding wines that are worth the money. As I keep doing the episodes, I am trying to improve the quality. I would like any kind of feedback you can give me to help improve my channel.
We have a lot of crazy going on around us right now. It has to be the most surreal start to a year that I have ever seen. I can remember sneaking in a tasting event at the Mullis Center in March, just before everything started to bust loose. Now here we are going into June with people all around me wearing masks and trying to practice “Social Distancing” a term I am beginning to loathe. I think when this is all over we should start practicing “Social Smothering” just to get back in the practice of getting close to our fellow humans again. One of the toughest aspects of all this is trying the recognize the person behind the mask. I can’t tell you how many times someone has said “hello Stan” to me and I had no idea who it was. Once I started chatting with them it occurred to me who was behind the mask. It’s been going on long enough now that I can identify many of my mask-wearing friends.
I have two favorite wines right now that I can’t get enough of. One is a Frapatto/Nerello Mascalese blend from Italy, the other is a Syrah Grenache blend from France. They are both under twenty bucks and are sure to land in my “Top Forty Under Twenty Bucks” list I put out at the end of the year. Keep your eyes open for an article or two I am planning to write about the aforementioned wines. If you live on San Juan Island and would like to try them, stop by the store and I will show you the where to find them. I don’t often buy the same wine over and over again, but I can’t help myself this time, they are that good.
Cheers!
Stan The Wine Man
