Alright, last night was an epic wine FAIL.  How?  See my previous post about the Stella Rosa Sparkling Red.  Follow that up with the bottle of 2007 Weingut Jager Achleiten Wachau White Table Wine that I opened.  What was wrong with this you ask?  I carefully cut away the foil to expose a giant clump of mold now acting as a cork.  I was hoping maybe it was just the top of the cork that had been exposed and that the contents of the bottle were still intact.  No, no no…no no no no…I attempted to put the corkscrew in and the whole cork, or what was left of it, just disintegrated into the bottle.    After that fail I opened up a miscellaneous chardonnay that was so meh it’s not even worth mentioning.

So what is this fixing a fail with a win I speak of?  Well, my shitty wine night paired with my new friends at Naked Wines equals free wine for you!  How?  The first 3 people to comment on this post will win a $50 gift card to Naked Wines!  (Gift card good for $50 off a minimum $51 wine purchase with $9.99 shipping for orders under $100.)  So get to commenting!  And don’t worry, if you don’t win this time around there will be more giveaways in the future!

In other news, I will be volunteering with Terrapin Station Winery this Saturday, September 21st, at the Maryland Wine Festival.  So if you’re headed to the festival stop by and say hi!

Wine Club Notes:

Year in and year out, one of the most popular wines among Vinesse club members is Stella Rosa.

That’s why we secure a supply each time a new bottling is released.  Stella Rosa is grown near the beautiful village of Santo Stefano Belbo in the Piedmont region of Italy.  There, it’s crafted into a bright and refreshing sparkling wine.

Many people are surprised to learn that sparkling wine is made in Italy, and they’re downright shocked when they hear about a red sparkler from Italy.  The northern Piedmont is the sparkling wine capital of Italy, its cool climate being conducive to growing the grape varieties that make good sparklers.

This is the home of Stella Rosa, a red sparkler meant to be served well chilled and enjoyed with fresh fruit, cheese or brunch fare.  Not as “bubbly” as French Champagne, its effervescence is no less enjoyable, and the wine is simply delightful to drink.  No wonder our members love it so much.

Grape composition: 100% Stella Rosa

Grape Source: Santo Stefano Belbo Area of Italy’s Piedmont Region

Aromas and Flavors: Pomegranate, Crisp Red Pear and a Note of Apple-Rhubarb Pie

My Thoughts:

Ok, I’ll be honest, I blindly reached into the back of the fridge hoping to pull out a Pinot Grigio or a Riesling.  I forgot I had this back there.  So when I opened this my immediate reaction was, “shit, how did a bottle of red end up in the fridge?  Dammit.”  Thinking maybe I thought it was a rose or something I looked closer and this definitely poured a beautifully dark ruby color.  Oh what is that?  Bubbles?  Hmm…interesting.  I wasn’t expecting that.  Alright, maybe this won’t be a complete fail.  And then the first sip, that magical first sip where my immediate thoughts were, “what bubbly fucking Kool-aid bullshit is this?”  Nope, I was not impressed.  Even though I was expecting something totally different, my palate was not braced for this.  I glance at the bottle again where the words “semi-sweet” taunted me.  No, just no.  There are plenty of semi-sweet wines that I find drinkable.  This is most definitely not one of them.

Perhaps if it were 97 degrees out and I was at a party in someone’s backyard I could…no…not even then.  Nope.  Sorry.  The syrupy sweetness is just too much for me.  If super sweet red wines are your thing, then by all means, grab a bottle, make some french toast, throw some fresh fruit on that, and enjoy.  Will I judge you for drinking the sparkling red wine equivalent of Juicy Juice?  Absolutely.

On a scale of “this tastes like piss” to “oops, I just drank the whole bottle” I would give this a “It tastes like a fizzy over-sugared children’s drink and it makes my teeth feel fuzzy.” Would I buy it again? NO.  Just…no.  And if someone ever got this for me as a gift I’d immediately assume they hate me.

Final Grade: C-

So my friend Frankie and I decided to make this past Saturday “-ery” day. We hit a cidery, meadery, winery and brewery. Ok, well Gordon Biersch is technically a “brew pub,” but they make beer, therefore, a brewery.  I’ll give you a brief rundown of our day and will have more in-depth product reviews coming later.

Our first stop was Distillery Lane Ciderworks (www.distillerylaneciderworks.com) where we took a self-guided tour of the orchard.  We were immediately bumped up to VIP status when our self-guided tour turned into a fully guided tour by the director of orchard security, Ruby.  Ruby is a Jack Russell Terrier who is in charge of keeping away deer and other critters from the apple trees.

In the shadow of the Appalaichian Trail, the cidery is home to over 40 varieties of European cider apples, heritage, and other hard-to-find apples.  They produce sparkling, still and premium hard ciders.

Did you know, that prior to prohibition, all ciders had an alcohol content?  During prohibition “ciders” were produced without alcohol.  Before prohibition they were just called “juice.”

Our next stop was Orchid Cellar (www.orchidcellar.com) which was a short drive from out first stop of the day.  We were greeted warmly by a loving black labrador retriever just before a hearty hello from the winery/meadery’s tasting crew for the day.

A fine producer of mead and Merlot, enjoy the meticulous recreation of some old family recipes using modern knowledge of chemistry and microbiology only to understand the process of winemaking, not to interfere with it.

Who would have thought that mead recipes from thousands of years ago would still be mindblowingly delicious?!

After stopping for lunch we took a quick detour through Old Town Frederick, which is a charming little part of Frederick, MD with an abundance of cute little shops and restaurants.  As we were parking we spotted a wine shop called Spin The Bottle (www.spinthebottlewinecompany.com).  I mean, how can you pass by a wine shop with such a cute name?

We knew we had wandered into the right place when we walked in and a mere 27 seconds later we were asked by the shop’s owner, “Are you thirsty?  I have some wines to taste.”  Our response in unison was of course, “yes!”  To which he replied, “Good!  And I think I’ll join you in the tastings.”  Aside from a fantastic wine selection, there was also an entire room dedicated to craft beers.

Our next stop was Viniferous (www.viniferous.co), also located in downtown Frederick.  We walked in to a huge area with hundreds of styles of wine from wall to wall.  We were welcomed by the owner and a moment later a tall long haired gentleman, who I now refer to as Wine Jesus, emerged from the back room and invited us back for a tasting of some beer and wines he had chosen to sample for the day.

I chose a bottle of Malbec that needed to come home with me before we left Viniferous. If you find yourself wandering Market St. in Frederick, MD definitely pop in and say hi.  They are ridiculously knowledgeable.

The last major stop on our tour for the day was The Winery at Olney (www.thewinderyatolney.com) where Dale expertly guided us through our round of tastings…and our second round of tastings…  A tasting here consists of choosing 5 wines from their list of 54984651.  Ok…it was a list of 25, but still, it was a lot to choose from and I was suffering from wine choice overload.

Frankie is friends with the owners of Noni Bacca Winery (www.nbwinery.com) in Wilmington, NC, who helped open The Winery at Olney.  So in a six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of way she was kind of a big deal when we got there.  She struck up a conversation with their winemakers while Dale helped us work our way through their extensive tasting list.

Such a fun little place and who would have thought that a winery in a strip mall could produce such fantastic wines!  Definitely a neat place to stop by if you are passing though, or if you live locally and you’re doing your grocery shopping go ahead and take a stroll across the parking lot and grab yourself a glass of goodness before finishing the day’s errands.