And the headline should continue : " Tasted VINEX SLANYANTSI " TR " Traminer and " CH " Chardonnay Whites ( I did not sample the " SB " Sauvignon Blanc this time ) & Many More! Wow, what an incredible tasting and experience for me.This was a real treat for me and one that pretty much within a week or so simply fell into my lap on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 : the same day that the owner of Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits walked through the front door unannounced after having been away and not scheduled to return for another month : like being hit smack-dab in the face between the yes and knocked senseless! I liked these wines : I found them to be of a very high quality overall, especially the ones made from the indigenous grapes and not those made from the Merot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.
I learned for the first time about the red indigenous grape Mavrud that gets blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and the Merlot grapes in the TERRA TANGRA 2008 dry red! Gotta love that! Tell me more about the Mavrud grape Christophe and Maglana.
The man and the woman that brought me these ten or so Bulgarian wines just appeared : like from out of thin air. Sure, their American contact, a lady had been to the store to talk about this and these wines but like so many things I heard it at the time and proceeded to forget it pretty quickly as I am barraged by so many things each and every day. It's just part of running a fun , exciting and active, serendipitous, spontaneous operation : where one thing links to another and so on ...
So Here I was wondering why the owner was back s unexpectedly and trying these " new " wines that included the one that they said was the most successful in Bulgaria and I was thinking that it was the most boring and calculated. It rested in the smack-dab middle of safety of flavors and tastes and I found it very drinkable and yet not very inspiring : no highs and no lows to it. I could see why it was so successful and yet for these very same reasons I found it to be the least unique, original or inspiring. It was just like so many others.
Funny, as we were talking we started to speak about languages and I told them that I spoke French and so we three began to speak French and things moved more smoothly than before. I think their French was better than their English and I liked that they spoke both languages so well besides their own : I was a bit jealous/envious. It thought these things as I tasted and enjoyed the overall high quality of the wines : that they were mostly made in the classic/traditional style and that they would all benefit from being served with a meal and not drunk on their own. I liked all of this very much.
I was snapping pictures all the while that I was tasting and observing and making mental/taste-bud notes on the wines and the wines and the two that were here with me watching me taste and comment on their country's wines. I bet they found me as interesting and as curious as I found them : from the same world and yet in many ways worlds apart...
The interesting thing and that bound the three of us together by-and-large was that we were on the same page where their wines were concerned : I liked them overall and am willing to buy and sell some of them once that they are available. At this point they are not here in the United States yet and so I wait to hear more from the three of them : their American contact that I met originally a week prior to this tasting showed up to pick them up saying : " You didn't think that I was going to leave you to carry these wines back all by yourselves did you? " That was nice : I liked that, too. So, now all I have to do is get some more information on these wines' prices and when they will be available to purchase.
We discussed that it would be a great thing to have an in-store wine-tasting with these wines on the weekend to get them introduced. The American lady had no problem with this as she lives locally and wants to get them launched well.
I am home now on Monday night at 11:20 PM my day-off and so I do not have my notes here. They were nice to leave me some fact sheets and so I will have to refer to them to finish this blog posting as with so many wines it is more complicated/ more lengthy than most. That's okay. I'm glad to be able to shed some light on these fine Bulgarian wines that should come to the U.S. and be available to anyone interested in discovering them for the first time : or those that know them already and want to share them with others and make others aware of the high quality available in wines from Bulgaria.
Being an artist I like to take some of these more artsy photos to bring something " new " visually to the table and to the body of information already available.
It was fun to meet both Christophe and Maglana of TexaVino Imports and it will be great when some of these wines arrive. I tasted both reds and whites and will include a partial list now of some of the fifteen -twenty or so wines that I tasted.
But I am out of time now and want to post this to get you all interested as tonight I will add the wines and vintages here to give you all some more info. In the meantime enjoy this blog entry in it's partial state of completeness. Is anything ever really complete anyway? Cheers and till later tonight, Thursday, June 10th, 2010. It's now time for work and selling more wines at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits in Washington D.C. N.W. ( 3423 Conn. Ave. N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 , Tel :202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com, www.clevelelandparkwine.com ). TONY
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