Matias Ovalle of Chile's COUSINO-MACUL winery in the Maipo Valley comes to Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits for the first time in late October 2008 to taste the " new " LOTA 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon ( $59.99, their " new " icon wine ) as well as the " new " dry Riesling, $16.49 ( not the famous Dona-Isadora at $8.99 ) which is also richer, fuller, a bit creamier and lush than the Dona-Isadora.They make a great complement these two dry Rieslings from COUSINO-MACUL. and we are happy to have both in our store as they both represent great values to our customers. I mean, who would have ever thought that Chile would be in the running for good value-great tasting dry Riesling?!? I know that sounds prejudiced and I am sorry for this . However, in my defense I can see that my assumption was wrong and I have corrected it and am always happy now to recommend one or the other of these two tasty Rieslings from Chile.
We may have also tasted the FINIS TERRAE Cabernet Sauvignon or perhaps the " Antiguas Reservas " Cabernet Sauvignon. I cannot recollect just now. They are both excellent and it's funny how when we do taste them both side by side we find one that is showing better than the other, depending on their development in the bottle when we open them. They sort of flip-flop back and forth in this manner and it is always interesting to see what turns up.
Matias also tasted the " new " vintage of the " Antiguas " Chardonnay and that shone as usual for those of our customers that love that creamy, bright, full sun-enriched butter taste.
As you can see in the first picture that Matias is signing one of the bottles as a gift for one of our customers. We have a lot of bottles signed as gifts for customers. I hazard to venture that perhaps our store in the U.S. sells more signed bottles than any other each year as gifts.
The other day soon after Matias' visit the founder and my good friend Alfredo of Billington Imports stopped by to say " hello - hola " and catch us up on the " new " developments at COUSIN-MACUL and at Billington Imports, too. As always it was great to see him. I'm holding the great everyday value bottle of Merlot ($9.99 ) COUSINO-MACUL Merlot upside down in my left hand in the picture with him.
Also in the picture is William Davis our rep from Billington Imports. I have blogged both about Alfredo and William recently in separate blogs if you care to check them out.
We at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 2008 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com Tel"202-363-4265 ) have sold a lot of the COUSINO-MACUL wines over the last eight-nine years. I thought long and hard about this and decided that besides the excellent quality they represent we have also had yearly visits from key family members ( Arturo Cousino has been in the store at least twice ) and winemakers ( from Jaime the senior winemaker of COUSINO-MACUL - there for more than 30 years! as well as Matias Rivera ). This means a lot to me and I feel a real sense of family because of this. Thank you Arturo, Jaime, Matias Rivera, Matias Ovalle, Alfredo, Alex and Eric, Tatiana, John, Barry, Ivy, William, Steve and whoever else I am forgetting!
It's been a good year at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits and I want to take this time to thank Billington Imports and all our customers, too for helping along with COUSINO-MACUL and so many others for making this a really wonderful year filled with incredible experiences and now memories! Cheers to 2008 and now here's looking at you 2009! TONY
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