Page 29 - Staff Tastings

Come summertime, I want to relax and look at the water - I want to smell the ocean and the bay - I want to eat raw oysters - and of course, I want a perfect wine to go with it!

Bodega Gurrutxaga's Basque white Txakoli delivers - from slopes overlooking the Atlantic, this refreshing white blends Hondarribi Zuri, Mune Mahatsa and Txori Mahatsa.

Never heard of these varietals?  Can't pronounce them either?  No problem.  I'm sure you know these words:

Crisp - Briny - Mineral - Citrus - Floral

Now picture all that in a bottle for only $18.95 - add a dozen of your favs from the raw bar and your set!

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate gave the same advice and scored the 2009 Gurrutxaga Txakoli Bizkaiko Txakolina 91pts.

So here's to a superb summer!

There are many nights where I find myself wanting to imbibe a nice glass of wine. The problem: I just don't feel comfortable opening a full bottle and throwing 2 glasses out.  The longing for a glass is left empty and my wine refrigerator full. 

Enter the perfect companion into this relationship, the half bottle!  Whether you are home alone, staying in a hotel, or perhaps your wife is pregnant, the half bottle will fulfill your every desire.  Just this week I have entered into the loving relationship with half bottles. 

There are many advantages to "halfies" other than less juice.  I just had the awesome opportunity to drink some Bordeaux half bottles.  First I enjoyed 2006 Cos D'estournel and then I challenged the beauty the Cos showed with a 2005 Lagrange...both in half bottles.  What I found was that although these wines were young, they drank amazing!  We all know about Magnums and how they age slowly, and the reverse is true

Recently, I had been struggling to find the perfect wine to go with whatever we were grilling, other than Waterstone Cab.  Many wines were very nice but I hadn't hit that homerun yet this year; except, of course, with the Waterstone. 

Well I nailed it this weekend.  We had a great cut of steak and a heavily spiced pork tenderloin.  I was taking a bit of a risk by going with a red and pork.  But it was great!  Perfect with the steak and the pork.

The wine: 2007 Craggy Range Te Kahu Vineyard - 91 RP - $19.95:

This is a Bordeaux blend from New Zealand.  Now, I'm already a fan of Pinot Noir from New Zealand but hadn't tried any bigger wines from there yet.  My wife and I loved it from the first sip before we even sat down with the food - SINGING!  All for $20!!  I think what really made this wine work is that it is a blend of the classic Bordeaux varietals but it's mostly Merlot. 

As I sat in my cubicle at a loss for what to do my next blog on, all of a sudden it hit me!  What is the best deal I've seen at Sokolin this year?!
 
Granted there have been plenty this year with one of our biggest suppliers leaving the Bordeaux business, but one that struck a chord with me more than any other has to be our
 
latest find.  Also combined with the fact that we sold a pallet in a week, then this has to be our best deal of 2010 by far. 
 
I know the suspense is killing you.... drum roll... It's the 2006 Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne!
 
Grand Cru White Burgundy, from the fresh, vibrant, juicy 2006 vintage, with a solid 94 pt Burghound score & offered less then release price.
 
It just makes sense.  We tried a bottle last night and it definitely lived up to the hype. 
 
Killer nose of fresh lime, peaches, green apple lead to a succulent

With this recent SUMMER HEAT, nothing pairs better than a crisp and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc!  What better place to go than to the Loire's Sancerre region!

These great Summer whites go well with everything this season has to offer: 
Pools, Beaches, Parties, Oysters, Clams, BBQs, Friends, and of course Fun!
They dance on your palate with wonderful citrus notes and lively acidity.  These wines are the perfect match with shellfish, ceviche, or even grilled seafood, but also don't need food.  Great sippers all on their own...

We just received an amazing, high-scoring Sancerre for the season!
It's the 2008 Claude Riffault Sancerre les Boucauds.  At only $24.95/bottle and $299./case.  And if you need a second opinion, here's the 92 point review:

"Very light yellow. Complex, floral bouquet combines Meyer lemon, orange peel,

As a Sommelier, I have a couple of main objectives when recommending wines. First and foremost, the issue of quality is at the head of the list. No matter what price point you're looking for, the wine has to be made well. Some people think they must sacrifice quality for the right price, but the good news is you don't have to! There are well-made, high-quality wines at ALL price levels. And here at Sokolin, we excel in finding the very best wines that taste in quality like bottles that are double in price. We taste through many wines on a weekly basis to narrow our selections down to only the wines we ourselves would be happy and excited to drink.

Secondly, I always like to push people out of their "comfort zone" of wine. We all have our go-to bottles which is a good thing, but getting stuck in a rut is not fun. And after all, wine should be fun. So, how do you

Here at Sokolin, we are lucky to have a colleague, Summer Wolff, who travels extensively throughout Italy. She spends some of her time there searching out great new indie wineries for our company to sell exclusively in the US.

One of my favorite 'Summer Wines' so far is the 2005 Eugenio Bocchino Barolo la Serra. Summer rates this wine 95 points (since it is not officially rated) and the bottle sells for $59.95 (compare to the very similar Roberto Voerzio Barolo La Serra in the same vintage, with a score of 94 points from Wine Spectator, which trades up to $250 per bottle!) One of the best aspects of the small, indie wineries is that they are super small production (150 cases made) yet not over priced! It's a small, tenderly cared for cuvee, for a price that cannot be beat.

And this is a 'Summer Wine' in more than one respect- sitting on a rooftop in Manhattan on a warm summer evening last weekend, with a plate of Italian cheeses, some

Fan of Nebbiolo and Pinot Noir?  Then I have something perfect for you to try.

Thanks to the efforts of importer Marc De Grazia, wine lovers can now look forward to enjoying vino from the northern slopes of Mt. Etna in Sicily.  His Tenuta delle Terre Nere estate is producing wonderfully perfumed and palate pleasing reds from the indigenous Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Capuccio varietals. 

Planted in soil composed of mostly volcanic ash and rock with a sprinkle of black pumice, and at elevations as high or higher than any other red-grape vineyard in Europe, the vines experience dramatic temperature variations between night and day and are exposed to drying and cooling winds.  These factors all help contribute to a collection of wines that are complex and rich, yet elegant and not overripe.

Marc not only recognized the potential of these nearly forgotten varietals and vineyards, ranging from 40 to 140 years old, but he had the vision to bottle

After anyone finds out what I do for a living I often hear "Wow - it must be great getting to try all that wine."  And for the most part it is.  However, we try a lot of wine it can be exhausting sifting through the subpar wines to find the gems.  I often say we have to kiss an awful lot of frogs to find that Prince(ss) Charming.

Great Pinot Noir can be especially difficult to discover because when it's good it's great, but when it's not it can be dreadful. 

Below are my top six Pinot Noir Prince(ss) Charmings.  Three from California and three from New Zealand:

CALIFORNIA
2005 Roessler Peregrine Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir - 91 DS - $19.99/ bottle: Now we knew the Roessler name already and we hadn't carried many of their wines due to the limited production (700-800 cases) but landed this one and some of their 2007s.  This is one of the best Californian Pinot Noir deals we've ever had. 

My colleagues and I have noticed a very unlikely trend this summer popping up in various publications and online - Champagnes with gourmet hot dogs!  I have to admit, we were a bit skeptical, but we're all huge bubbly fans and are never afraid to enjoy a good dog now and then.  So we decided to try it out for ourselves here at the Sokolin offices.  We wanted to look at Champagnes and sparkling wines of varying prices paired with some really creative and interesting dogs that we could quite easily replicate on our home (or office) grill. And with the end of summer fast-approaching what better way to close it out than by doing a killer tasting.

We were really surprised at how well the different qualities in the bubbly truly complimented the meaty, sometimes spicy and definitely unconventional toppings we chose.  In the interest of full disclosure, we recreated these dishes from various sources after scouring restaurant menus from across the country.  We were