It's always great to get Hugh Hamilton of his own Aussie winery in McLaren Vale HUGH HAMILTON wines back into our store Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel: 202-363-4265 anthony.quinn@clevelandparkwines.com, www.clevelandparkwine.com, also now on Facebook at : Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits and on Twitter at : cpwinespirits ) when he visits Washington D.C. each year. This , for us was an especially great visit with Hugh as he had business to conduct in Washington and was able to be in our store two nights in a row! What a great opportunity this was to share both Hugh and his wines with our customers. Many people already knew both Hugh and his wines as he does visit usually once a year and we do invite him to taste with our customers. All good fun and on this last visit late in 2011 Hugh came to dinner at our home after the second night's wine-tasting ( I cooked - grilled outside ) and we had a lovely visit with my wife and son and talked wine and about the PERRIN Reserve Cotes Du Rhone 1996 that we drank ( signed by Jacques Perrin the owner to me year years ago ) and the Saperavi grape from Georgia, the Kindle that he saw my wife has and wants to give to his, and college with our son. Fun all around.
This is but a small glimpse with Hugh as we follow the tasting with two of our female customers, one a regular customer and one that we were meeting for the very first time. That's always nice as we need to continually make new customers to stay healthy. They both liked Hugh's wines and I believe both purchased a bottle, too. We virtually sold out of Hugh's wines within two days with Hugh's help. Thanks Hugh!
The store was quiet here for a moment and so Hugh was able to spend a bit more time talking to these two lovely young ladies. That's really nice as often it's quite busy and it's difficult to taste and talk about the wines and where they are from. In this case from the McLaren Vale which is just outside the town of Adelaide and a beautiful part of Australia as well. I was able to get to the Barossa Valley and to the Adelaide Hills but simply did not have enough time to see Hugh. I will regret that for a very long time Hugh and the only way that I can make that better is to make a special trip at some point to see you at your winery. I may be able to do that when I finally get to visit New Zealand for the first time. I still have to work that out as well!
All the wines were showing well. That pleased me enormously as we pretty much had to pull this tasting " out of the Hat " so to speak. There I was on a Tuesday morning writing the store's weekly email and who should pop his head around the corner with a big smile and a " G'Day " but Hugh! Fortunately enough I was already receiving some wine from Arielle Monaco of the Country Vintners that included some of Hugh's wines. That made it easy for us to at least taste two or three that Tuesday evening from 5-8PM. What good luck as Hugh's wines always sell quite well as so many of our customers already know them.
I think that we may also have tasted some of the Merlot as well? My memory gets a bit hazy at times. I think that I wanted something besides the Sangiovese dry red blend and the Jim Jim Shiraz? I have always really loved the Merlot for it's forward and full and rich flavors. I like the Chardonnay for it's elegance and finesse and the Viognier for it's touch of more tropical fruit tones and the well-placed dollops of honeysuckle. There's a lovely sense of place and good-timing and balance with Hugh's wines that make the word " breed " come to my mind often enough.
Hugh is smart enough to get the names and the emails of all the customers that taste his wines so that he may put them on his email list and send them information. We do the same at our register. And both Hugh and I can often be seen passing out our business cards to our customers, new and old as you never know when their hearing from us might mean some more positive business where everyone benefits?
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