For those of you looking for something beyond wine, I came across a couple of newsy press releases that may be of interest. First, check out these stats on America’s pivot to home cooking. Then, once you’ve decided that you’re one of the cool kids that have jumped on the “experimental” recipe band wagon, sign up for a few at-home craft cocktail courses. Cheers.
This has become a Briscoe staple. And, unfortunately, sometimes staples go overlooked. This shouldn’t be the case: if there’s something that’s taken up permanent residence in the cellar (or closet as it were at the moment, thank you COVID for taking away my construction workers…), then it’s certainly something worth talking about. So cheers to an everday wine I could probably drink, well, everyday.
If you haven’t read my notes about Crystal Basin Cellars Mourvèdre, definitely take a look. My understanding of California’s Sierra Foothills as a cool-climate wine terroir was proven right by that light, yet rustic single-varietal expression. So I was excited to open the winery’s single-varietal Grenache—a grape that I have a love-hate relationship with. I love it when I can taste the eccentricity of fruit flavors innate in this variety, the racy red spices that can linger in the back palate, and the assertive acidity that binds it all together. I hate when it turns into a over-ripe fruit bomb, worthy of spreading on my toast with peanut butter.
I’ll give you one good guess which side of the Grenache spectrum Crystal Basin Cellars falls into…
The below is a formal press release
Upstate New York Distilleries and Wineries team up in the Stone Soup Project, an initiative providing 20,000 gallons of hand sanitizer per week to support Upstate New York communities
Local business transformation agency, Aspire, lends their decades of experience in business management and execution to the project
Rochester, N.Y.—Upstate New York distilleries from Rochester to the Finger Lakes, including Rootstock Cider & Spirits, O’Begley Distillery and Uncharted Spirits, have come together in the Stone Soup Project to provide 20,000 gallons/week of hand sanitizer to support local Upstate New York communities. The initiative is being led by Rochester native Chris Carlsson, a world-renowned advisor to the spirits industry and Aspire, a boutique business transformation agency based in Rochester, co-founded by Ron Dougherty and Jonathan Romeyn.
I don’t know if you’ve seen my deep dark dungeon where I store my wine. Ok, it’s a coat closet. This COVID thing’s got me like “When can we finish construction on the awesomely designed—and legit—wine cellar?!?!?. Ah well, like Indiana Jones, I lit a torch and ducked beneath the dusty remains of corpses who traversed these parts before me. Wine to the left, wine to right, wine all around me. How…how am I to know which is the right bottle for tonight? I can barely see. Quickly…quickly I must make my choice before the walls collapse around me and a bolder of a wine cask comes rolling towards me. Grab something! Grab anything! Now Run!!!!
