Tonight Jody poured the dry yet lovely and floral, aromatic white blend of 74% Viognier and 26% Marsanne from Australia's McLaren Vale and made by D'Arenberg. Family owned - two sons and a father I believe. I have met one of the sons that recommended to me : " Drink heavily ! " on a cruise ride that left from Annapolis years ago and where my wife was invited to come, too. What fun. Jody was there then on the cruise as she was at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits tasting with our customers.
As she kept mentioning this with also the dry red Grenache from D'ARENBERG my mind started to wander as I thought of the words and the lightness and freshness : and the basket became the basket of those hot air balloons that go up and out over the vineyards and when they finally land there is always a great meal and more wine awaiting them. Who does not like this image? I do.
ANYWAY : I saw the basket that was rising with this hot air balloon in the McLaren Vale of South Australia ( not far from Adelaide ) filled with grapes and not people. Just two people, barefoot, one male and one female in the basket and they were already crushing the grapes with their bare feet. The juice that was being pressed from the grapes was falling with the gravity into the plastic sacks that were handing down from the floor of the basket. These bags, one after the other were filling with this fresh grape juice and as they filled they were sealed and another sack would start to fill.
These two kept treading on these grapes and finally all the juice was extracted from them. It was fun to watch and to think of : way up high as they were above the vineyards, with a nice breeze, bright sunshine, a warm yet not hot day, baby-blue skies with small puffy white clouds as accents. It was now time to land. The hot-air balloon was dropping to the ground and people were gathered around it to hold these sacks filled with raw and the freshest, brightest grape juice to be soon made into wine.
It was all a grand success, the sacks were successfully removed and the two that had pressed them jumped out of the basket and they joined the others for a delightful meal and the wine was these two that Jody was serving tonight to our customers. It was a grand affair and everyone had a marvelous time. Cheers, thanks Jody for getting me to thinking of this. Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn 10/11/13 our customers earlier.
She kept talking about how the family would not budge and still used a basket press to press the grapes to maintain a freshness, a lightness and a fruitiness. She kept saying that you could taste it in this aromatic white 2011, $17.99, 13.5% alcohol by volume, and I agree, it's balanced and stops just at the right moment and does not go overboard at all with the heaviness or weight. Bravo!
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