The Cheese Board, what are you drinking?

I am drinking lambrusco full-time right now. Red wines without food are too much, usually--I don't have energy to cook or eat at night so I'm not pairing wine with dinner--but lambrusco is perfect.

https://images.vivino.com/thumbs/5ieZiblIQe2wBEPMsQy9FA_pl_375x500.png

Also has the added attraction of the cork being secured with a giant metal staple that you have to pry off.

This one is pricier--around $22 a bottle at the only place I know of that carries it:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1016/7695/products/SAETTI_LAMBRUSCO_2015.jpg?v=1503543284

i ordered this gin. it's blue!
https://www.tableandvine.com/labels/B1000004827.jpg
also on the way Amaro Dell'Etna
this all better not suck

I had some sfumato for the first time yesterday. This is one of the few amari that I so far think I like better straight rather than mixed with something. I get so much green, vegetal stalk when it's mixed. I should take a pic of my growing amari collection at some point. so pretty.

Tonight I am drinking a natural wine, a montepulciano from australia. I just got to the end of the bottle and was a bit startled about the amount of upright sediment leftover for a young wine.

"a montepulciano from australia" sort of sounds so inconcgruous to this know-nothing. was it to your liking? have never done the natural wine thing.

went out for natural wine (a bugbear is that this is pretty much necessary in vancouver, where little of what is available in bars and restaurants can be bought at a store) on friday night.

had a couple of bottles

milan nestarec - forks and knives white

czech wine made from müller-thurgau. surprisingly acidic, very refreshing and drinkable, and with some yeast flavours you may associate with natural wine but not too "barnyardy"

and

angiolino maule sassaia

made from garganega mainly (with trebbiano?) which was softly fruity and quite mineral

It's this producer called Delinquente wines from Riverland. I had been seeing their bottles all over the place (very noticeable labels.) It was completely fine for the price point. I had a lot of natural wines in the last month because I was back home in ny and trying to taste a bunch since things are hard to get where I am. Natural wine is a huge category, they are made in all sorts of styles. My spouse hates most of them because they sometimes referment in the bottle or get weird surprise offtastes because they aren't usually filtered or fined so they aren't as stable. I don't mind when wine get on the verge of kombucha.

xpost was I with you? I had that czech muller thurgau on sunday evening.

small world!

i also had an old vine riesling from central valley and got a georgian white that was more straightforward for the non-natural wine lovers I was with.

That's so funny that we both just had that bottle. I thought it was more esoteric and agreed to get it because my friend had been wanting to try it and I am up for anything.

i googled it at the bar and some website said they did 4000 bottles for the year or some such amount, so reasonably esoteric

That's a pretty small amount but we are in large cities I guess.

went out to astoria, mostly honestly so i could try out the beers. buoy had a pretty nice cucumber gose called "benedict cumberbatch". i really enjoyed fort george as well - they had the best poutine i've had in the state of oregon and an excellent hazy ipa called "skies of wonder". i got a growler of that one to go. i'm really liking the "hazy" ipa trend that's started - i was never really into ipas until the hazys came around. i'm also loaded for bear on bottles, more than will actually fit in my fridge.

I'm a big fan of both Buoy and Fort George brewing, they do great work in general. The pub is also nice as you note.

Yeah I love the hazy things. Such a welcome change from years of being bludgeoned with hoppy bitterness. Found a Bell's "Official" hazy @ local store the other day. Have never tried theirs and am looking forward to later today.
Xpost

I also enjoy the hazy ipa trend, but I've found they don't have the same flavor when canned/bottled. If you can go somewhere where they're on tap, I'd recommend it

The Alchemist, Tree House, Trillium & Other Half pretty much drove the haze craze strictly on can sales over the past few+ years, so that's a rather refreshing take mh.

Maybe I'm wrong! I've had the same hazy beers in can and on tap, some on tap right where they were brewed, and it seems to lose something. It could also be my small sample size.

It looks like that Bell's one that outdoor_miner mentioned is available around here on tap and, hopefully, canned. I'll see if I can do a taste test.

Part of the mythology of Heady Topper (from The Alchemist) is that because the beer was so ugly (hazy, opaque, un-fined/filtered) the packaging says "Drink From The Can!" on it. I think they started canning it in 2011.

all right, I’ve had 30oz of Bell’s Official from the tap. now to track down some cans

well, i think they're tasty enough. the dough recipe worked fine. but maybe i didn't boil 'em long enough and also could have taken them further in the baking bc they're pretty overly soft and chewy and got no crispy exterior. will def. try again in the near future. i put caraway and black sesame seeds on 'em.
https://i.imgur.com/0djkhTs.jpg

shite, wrong thread!

well that Bell's Official hazy didn't impress. i liked it alright but had expectations i guess for my first offering from them. just didn't have much oomph/complexity. i'll stick with hazy little thing and not think twice fwiw

Where do you live outdoor_miner?

So Cal, in a little town called Redlands east of L.A. (not by choice, mind)

try Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale, kind of their signature

Not that I’ve had it in a long time but i always liked Bell’s Two Hearted.

my closest bar (that isn’t the cheese bar!) had an excellent two-hearted special on tuesdays for a long time. 20oz pour for $5

oh damn, I've raced bikes in Redlands.

I would head over to Hangar 24 and see if they have any of these:

https://hangar24brewing.com/beers/l-39-ipa/

I've never had it, but I have had several batches of their Pugachev's Cobra and it is extremely well made. I can imagine they did a good job with the L-39?

and two-hearted rules!

haven't been to hangar since the summer, but i'll def go and look for that (probably not today on account of redlands' classic bike race that's going on all day and my abode is damn near the middle of it). ritual is another good brewery in town but i don't think they do hazy rn.

Haha, sorry about that... it's a fun race though!

was out for natural wine on saturday. had a bottle of Monastero Suore Cistercensi Coenobium Ruscum. Verdicchio, Malvasia, Grechetto, Trebbiano.

made by nuns. two weeks sur lie, so barnyardy as heck, hot on the nose, minerals, caramel. nice wee wine.

i've had one of their wines! not that one tho, the one i had was their more normal white

i dont think 2 weeks on lees necessarily means that a wine will be barnyardy?

oh yeah i think i should have said "also".

skin contact too i should note

i guess the difference between the ruscum and their other white is the other one is not skin contact

White wines typically don't get barnyard aromas, because that is usually associated with brett (wine fault) and those yeasts can't deal with higher acidity.

Btw which wine bar do you usually go to?

(some people do like brett in their wines)

ok, i am bad with wine knowledge. is it possible for a skin contact to have a yeastiness to it or am i probably tasting something else and misidentifying?

there's not many places with much natural wine in vancouver that are not primarily restaurants. i got to https://www.juicebaryvr.com which is the main place in the city that is wine focused and all natural wine

it's also walking distance from my apartment which helps

You totally have fine wine knowledge!

Skin contact for white wines usually can give it a little more body and maybe some tannin if it gets to be almost an orange wine. The sur lies where the wine isn't being racked (letting sediment/leftover yeast from fermentation settle and then moved to another vessel) and then also stirred can give it nutty, creamy notes, more body. Left longer, you have things like champagne that are briochey, toasty, yeasty.

thank you for that info. i should probably do some study, my partner has some of the wset books at home i should read.

also had a glass of a pet nat from a new winemaker called neon eon from summerland in b.c.'s okanagan region which was a zweigelt. good light carbonation and easy drinking, but a little sweet, wouldn't fancy a bottle of it

Oh yeah, the wset books are pretty comprehensive but kind of dry. There are some fun sites, like Wine Folly. ( I think she has a book now). If you have amazon prime I think the Wine Bible is available on check out for free (but not the canada amazon).

Oh man, I never see any canadian wines, except for ice wine.

Is your partner doing wset?

she hasn't done it but is thinking of doing so. but she has read through some books a colleague gave her, she's a server at a farm to table resto so it helps professionally and she enjoys wine and wants to know more about it.

i didn't even know that they made wine in canada until i moved here. although given that the climate is very similar to the american parts of the pnw i suppose i shouldn't be too surprised.

as the province has the monopoly on liquor distribution there tends to be a bit of a protectionist thing, so you end up having lots of bc wine available (although the more interesting stuff usually ends up at private wine stores rather than government ran ones) and less foreign stuff

i suppose that's a bad way of describing it, the liquor store will be mainly foreign wine for sure, but the BC wine is over-represented

That is similar to every wine growing region.

If she is a server she should just do Court of Master Sommeliers and try to become a certified sommelier. Both are very similar about theory up to a point but wine service is part of the court program and more knowledge of wine producers.

I don’t often buy wines from the States cos it’s hard to find value, but took a punt on a few bottles of Trousseau-Gris from Jolie Laide and I’m very glad I did. Really gorgeous delicate copper colour, lovely soft texture, floral nose but fresh and mineral taste.

Also a young vine Xinomavro from Thymiopoulos - really tasty red berries and a beautiful aroma (reminded me of Alpha Box & Dice’s ‘F is for Fog’ Nebbiolo).

xp I remember when I lived in Ontario I’d go to LCBO and every time walk straight past all the local wine cos I assumed Canadian wine must be shite because I was dumb. Gutted I didn’t try more now, only time I see it in London is occasionally spotting an Inniskillen ice wine for like £150 on a dessert list...