The winners for the tickets to the Grand Tasting at Bon Vivant are going to be picked at 6pm tomorrow (Friday)! To enter the drawing just click on the e-mail below and provide us with your name and e-mail so we can let you know if your the big winner!
Happy Sipping,
It Starts With a Grape
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So, there is a fantastic event being held this coming weekend called Bon Vivant. Its being held to benefit the Centaur Stride Therapeutic Riding Facility which provides recreational facilities to disabled people and their families. So, were recruiting you, our readers, to drink for a cause.
Is going to be held in Chautauqua, New York, and there are many different events you can attend throughout the weekend. Me, I’ll be at the champagne brunch on Sunday!
We’re also raffling off two tickets to the grand tasting! That’s right, FREE TICKETS! A winner will be picked at random on Friday and will be awarded both tickets, don’t worry, we wont play favorites! Just send in your name and email to the address provided below. (Sorry for the short notice) The Grand Tasting is going to be held at the Expo center, on Saturday from 7pm till midnight, and the tickets are worth over $100!
freetickets@itstartswithagrape.com
You can follow the link in the side bar for more information on the events this weekend, to purchase tickets, and more info on the Centaur Stride Therapeutic Riding Facility.
Thanks for your support, hope to see you there!
Heather Denaro
It Starts With a Grape
but it here at drink up for less
Tokaji, Hungary, is primarily known for its desert wines. Furmint, which is actually the type of grape used to produce this wine, takes very well to Botrytis, aka: Noble Rot, and therefor is a prime candidate for exceptional desert wines. It happens to be the most widely planted white grape varietal in Hungary, and also goes by the names Mosler and Sipon in Austria and Slovania respectively. That being said, this is not a desert wine. History lesson over, on to the review!
Its a stunning and vibrant, yet deep, gold in color, and fairly heavy in consistency, this ones stick’in to the glass! The first thing to hit me, compliments its ultra fragrant nose, was clove, mmm spicy, fallowed by freshly sliced, super ripe strawberries, and just a flutter of crisp garden fresh green beans. It gracefully coats the mouth in a creamy, luscious wave of velvet, delivering such delicious flavors as poached pear lightly seasoned with cinnamon. Next comes a refreshing zing of lemon/lime zest, making for the perfect balance to the heavy, creamy body this white posses as a result of secondary fermentation and barrel aging. As if that weren’t enough to wow your taste buds, there’s also flavors of home canned peach and fresh mango, with a lengthy finish of spiced apple pie. As for food, I’m going with broiled scallops on this one, simply done with butter, lemon, wine, and just a touch of rosemary. I could also see it working very with a white seafood chowder, given its full bodied, creamy texture.
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First and foremost, this wine needs to breath. Decant it, pour it a half hour before you drink it, or if you don’t have the time, pour it back and forth between two glasses a couple of times, just get some air on it.
This will reveal a bright nose of blueberries, ripe red, fresh off the vine raspberries, black pepper, and charcoal. This 100% Granacha is an almost electric hue of magenta, and even after vigorously aerating, this wine still bites (in a good way!). If you want to wake up your dormant taste buds this phenomenally robust red will do the trick! It delivers a spicy wave of flavors including cinnamon and tarragon, along with a wallop of tangy raspberry, and plenty of black pepper. If you could taste the smell of a smoldering campfire on a cool summer night, well, that’s the finish you will get from this Spanish firecracker. It makes me crave bacon and Gorgonzola atop grilled steak on a bed of sauteed spinach delicately seasoned with fresh garlic.