Food & Wine — Wine

It’s time to set aside the image of French Bordeaux aficionados as cartoonish wine snobs, whose own age reflects the age of the wines in their cellars, and instead to embrace the new Bordeaux! If you enjoy world class wines of the highest quality, lovingly made by innovative winemakers, and averaging about $20-30 a bottle, you, too, can be a Bordeaux appreciator!  Historically, Bordeaux wines have consisted of six red grape varieties (Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Carménère and Malbec) and three white varieties (Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle). Red Bordeaux contain mostly Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet...

Toque & Clochers "Saint Joseph" Limoux Chardonnay 2018 Staff Pick! Special wine bottled from a historical auction in France. Only a limited amount available and exclusively from Bottle Shop. Our Chardonnay comes from the village of "Saint Joseph" that was auctioned in 2019 after the oenologists tough selection process and selection of the barrels. Only about 100 barrels are auctioned each year and we are honored to have received the fruits of their labor. Each bottle is individually numbered and wrapped. One of the best barrel aged Chardonnays we have tasted. Staff Pick!   Calibre Mendoza Malbec 2018 90 points A versatile...

  Cellar workers, or cellar rats, are often romantically portrayed in movie fiction wearing pristine Carhartts and working in immaculate barrel rooms. The reality couldn’t be more different. Most work in the cellar involves liquid and plenty of it. Grape juice, grape must, wine, cleaning solutions, sterilizing solutions, and mass quantities of clean water are the cellar rat’s constant companion. This leads to soggy boots, damp pants and a Jackson Pollock-like display of stains on all clothing. It also involves noise—from a rattling bottle line whizzing by your ear to the endless BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of a forklift in reverse. Most of...

Check out our Virtual Tasting with the wines of Montpellier and our latest imports from France.  Without the luxury of traveling, let's reminisce some of our current discoveries from a historical wine region from France. Imagine the Southern Coast of France shaped like a crescent with Provence to the east and Rousillon to the South. The city of Montpellier is located 6 miles from the coast, is about 2 hours from Marseille, 1.5 hour from Perpignan and a 4-hour train ride from Paris. It is famous for its University, one of the oldest in the world, founded in 1160. Nostradamus, the...

  The history of the Zinfandel grape has all the elements of a great novel: the drama and intrigue of an immigrant’s journey and the ups and downs of fame and fortune, all culminating in a popular resurgence that led to a 21st century search for the grape’s origin. GOLD FEVER: The Zinfandel grape hitched a ride with migrants travelling to California in search of wealth during the Gold Rush of 1849 and was met with almost immediate success. It grew vigorously in the semi-arid foothills, yielding large, tightly-clustered fruit. The vines did not require stakes or trellises and were...