Holiday/winter wines

We've asked some wine shops around town to name one wine they'd recommend this month. Here's what they tell us.

Esquin Wine Merchants

Wine: Vita Migliore Red 2017

Area: Columbia Valley

Price: $19.99 per 750 ml bottle

Notes:

• Il vino di famiglia e tornato! "I wish we could tell you the source for this wine…alas, we cannot." But it shows in the bottle.
• This vintage is so incredible and elegant. The palate is balanced without being too pushy. Nice acidity to handle food, and tannins just bold enough to give the wine some well-deserved body.
• Dark brooding fruit, with a touch of silky elegance. A little bit of earth and leather coming in on the finish. WOW. This is just stunning.
• Perfectly paired with chicken Parmigiana, aged cheeses, or good old fashioned spaghetti and meatballs!
• Backstory: During the late 1800s, Pasquale Intrieri picked grapes in the fields of Calabria in Southern Italy and dreamed of a better life. In 1901, Pasquale and his teenage bride Francesca left Italy and immigrated to the US to fulfill their dream. They settle in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, where Pasquale found work in a Pittsburg steel mill. Francesca stayed home and cared for their 11 children and baked bread for neighbors. They not only created a better life for themselves but for their children and their children's children. Today, there are close to 100 Intrieri offspring that have a better life as a result of that bold move across the Atlantic. The youngest of their 11 children is Rosalind LeFevre, mother of Esquin Wine & Spirits owner Chuck LeFevre. This wine is dedicated to Pasquale and Francesca and it is called Vita Migliore- 'Better Life' in Italian.

Ordering information:

Website: madwine.com
Email: sales@madwine.com
Phone: 206-682-7374

About Esquin Wine Merchants:

With over 5400 wines from all over the world on their sales floor, Esquin has whatever you need, including a knowledgeable and experienced sales staff. Esquin is family owned and operated. They have built their business by providing the best combination of price, selection, and service to customers. 2700 4^th Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98134

Champion Wine Cellars

Wine: 2016 Orenda Winery Cabernet Sauvignon

Area: Columbia Valley, Washington

Price: $23.50 per 750 ml bottle, $21.15 per bottle when you purchase 6 or more bottles

Notes:

• Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Petit Verdot
• Orenda Winery is new, opening in June 2019 in Carnation. "Orenda" means "The balance of energy between all things."
• The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon is a product of Orenda's second commercial vintage. Fruit comes from Stillwater Creek Vineyard along the Royal Slope and spends 24 months in French oak.
• They specialize in high elevation fruit aged for two years in small French oak barrels, partnering with some of the highest elevation vineyards in Washington State for their grapes. This provides a cool climate with late ripening fruit. Since the grapes have more time to mature, the wine is more subtle than that made with grapes from warmer areas. Old world style flavors result when the wine is aged in French oak barrels.
• Wine opens with crushed blackberries, cassis, mint-tinged earth, and milk chocolate. It is rich and expressive in the mouth, full bodied and brooding with firm grip. Wafting from the glass are fragranced aromas of nutmeg and cinnamon. Raspberries, strawberry jam, pie spice, olallieberries, hints of graphite and fresh cut herbs join firm tannins and nice underlying oak through the persistent finish.
• Pairs well with roast lamb, beef short ribs, and other braised beef dishes, and slow-braised venison cooked in red wine. It also pairs beautifully with cheese - Brie, Camembert, Gorgonzola - and dark chocolate, veggie burgers, mint, mushroom risotto, grilled vegetables, and walnuts.

Ordering information:

Website: championwinecellars.com
Phone: 206-284-8306
In person: at pickup wine window

About Champion Cellars:

Champion Wine Cellars opened in 1969. After 50 years, it was purchased by Erin Lyman. She worked at Purple Café and Wine Bar, RN74, Zig Zag Café, and was Wine Director at Café Campagne. She has certifications from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust and the Wine Scholar Guild and is a pinned French Wine Scholar. 8503 Greenwood Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98103.

North City Bistro & Wine Shop

Wine: 2018 Austin Hope Cabernet Sauvignon

Area: Paso Robles, California

Price: $37 per 750 ml bottle, $35 per bottle for 6-pack, $33 per bottle for full case (online prices for this wine are between $45-$55, buy direct from North City!)

Notes:

• This wonderful wine from Austin Hope always gets incredible accolades from the press, and this vintage is no exception, with 95 points from Wine Enthusiast.
• Per Austin Hope, owner/winemaker, "The goal for this Cabernet is simple - to make wine that expresses all that Paso has to offer, with its pastoral beauty, perfect soils, maritime climate, and limitless possibility."

Ordering information:

Website: northcitybistro.com. Link in top center of home page "Click to Send Ray an Email"

About North City Bistro & Wine Shop:

In the Before Times, North City offered great bistro food, live music from local artists, and retail wine sales. While live music is on hold, they still offer enticing take-out and limited deck and indoor dining Wednesdays and Thursdays 4-7 p.m. and Fridays 4-8 p.m., as well as wine sales. North City is a local jewel. 1520 NE 177th Street, Shoreline, WA 98155.

Ordering information:

Blanc & Rouge

Wine: 2017 Domaine Magdalena Cabernet Sauvignon

Area: Red Mountain, Washington

Price: $40 per bottle, 10% discount on 6 bottles, 15% discount on 12 bottles

Notes:

If there was just one wine I could share with Santa, it would have to be Washington's Red Mountain Domaine Magdalena Cabernet Sauvignon.

• A lot of the goodness in a wine lies in the story behind it. Winemaker Maggie Hedges loved red wine. Then she met her husband Christophe, a child of a wine family whose story spans generations and oceans, and her California head turned toward Washington. The couple married and passed on a honeymoon. Instead they purchased land on Red Mountain and planted a vineyard.
• Four acres of Cabernet were planted. A house was built. Two babies came along. It just seemed right, since they live in the vineyard, that organic and biodynamic farming come into play. Ten years later the first vintage of Domaine Magdalena was bottled.
• The raw, natural quality of this Red Mountain stunner comes from the terroir, spontaneous native yeast fermentation, and malo-lactic fermentation, under the careful eye of Christophe's winemaking sister Sarah Goedhart, plus seven months in neutral oak barrels.
• Put together, the highly structured yet elegant package shows the world just how Red Mountain rolls - powerful and tannic.
• Vibrant and complex, this 100% Cabernet stands out because of unnecessary oak or time in barrel. It is an expression of the land and the love that goes into the bottle.

Ordering information:

In store
Phone: 360-568-0850
Delivery: can be arranged at an additional cost based on zip code

About Blanc & Rouge:

With more than 3,000 bottles available (domestic/international) and prices ranging from $10-$210, Blanc & Rouge can answer all your needs. Owner Mina Williams is a Northwest native with a degree from the UW in journalism and has written about wine over the years. She worked for a wine and liquor distributor for several years, taking the Certified Specialists in Wine Course while there. Mina began working at Blanc & Rouge in 2014 where she took the first two levels of the Court of Sommeliers and became a certified sommelier. She and husband Bruce Rutkin eventually purchased Blanc & Rouge. 801 1^st Street, Snohomish, WA 98290. blancandrougewine.com

December 2020