It was fun to meet Angie White who married into the family that owns the GARRETSON Wines of Paso Robles, California on July 6th, 2005. She came with our Bacchus Imports rep Sal Furfari and tasted me on her various Rhone-style reds and whites . I liked them so much that I bought four of them I believe : two reds ( the purple-colored label, and one in a cream-colored label with purple swirls all through it that to my humble opinion was more a deeply-colored rose than ever any red I have ever known ) ; and two whites ( both in orange-colored labels, one more oaked and heavy than the other ).
After tasting the wines with Angie I asked her to sign my winemaker.owner/family guest book and asked her to include some things that you our customers might want to know about GARRETSON. Angie wrote : Tony - Thanks for tasting our wines during our " kick-off " week in the market ! " Best, Angie . Then she also wrote : " Winemaker & owner - Matt Garretson, National sales director - Angie White and office manager - Jaime / Edgar Beers. Then she wrote " Let wine be what it's going to be ". She also wrote : " Rhone-style wines, Paso Robles, California.
While all this was going on I took pictures of Angie and will soon download them here for you all to enjoy. I think that they came out well and help to add to the story of this visit for her to our nation's capitol.
For more technical information on Angie's wines go to : 303-918-2787 / Fax : 303-282-4670 and angie@garretsonwines.com.
I liked the weight and the density, the fullness of flavors to these wines. They were big yet contained wines that I often thought might go better with food than alone. I bought a really dark-colored rose that they make that they called red. I found that a bit presumptuous on their part but applauded them for their daring to do so anyway.
The whites had a lot of Viognier and one was pretty heavily-oaked or so it seemed. It sold for around $23-24 a bottle and aged quite nicely in the bottle revealing a luscious, ripe, layered white that felt like my tongue was on a water/wine-bed of smooth, all-enveloping flavors. It was hard not to like and would hold up to many flavorful and well-seasoned dishes.
We have virtually sold all of Angie's wines now and will have to contact her to find out who picked them up after they parted ways with Bacchus Importers.
I need to taste them once again. I remember the red being medium-bodied and quite appealing from the start. I liked it then.
I need to try them now to see what has happened since this lapse of three years since Angie's visit to our store. I'm typing and proofing this on my day-off Monday, 12:18 A.M. on December 8th ( just turned 9th , 2008. It;s time to post this now and get some sleep.
My one comment would be to work on a more easy-to-read-more-descriptive-attractive-to-the-eyes label. This one just did not work for me and I suspect it did not work for a lot of our customers that did not know these wines.
I do like the cream-colored label with purple swirls the best of these labels and think that it stands out in a positive way. It's like a Gaelic dance or sorts and the movement of the purple/lavender speaks to me nicely and draws me to it.
However, having said this I also have to add that some people when seeing we had the wines were delighted to find them. Some of our customers had been to the winery and discovered them while in California.
GARRETSON has an interesting story to tell and makes some really good wines as well. Try them whenever you get a chance : for the money and for the taste they are well-worth an investment of buying them at your local store or if you find them on a restaurant list. Just ask someone to describe them to you before buying them so that you know what you have first.
Enjoy, cheers and Happy Holidays to you all this 2008! TONY
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