Walking Through the Wine Store and Reminiscing

Folks often ask me, how long have you been into wine? What is the WineWiz origin story?

Well, I realized it’s been over 20 years now! I was on a Celebrity cruise vacation with my then-boyfriend/now-ex-husband.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, on one of the at-sea days, the sommeliers were offering a Wine Tasting 101 class. It made sense: the more knowledgeable people were about wine, and the more different wines they were exposed to, the more likely they’d be to order more wine and pricier wines.

They really taught you the basics in a friendly, not at all pretentious way. Here’s what to look for when we look at our glass. Here’s how to swirl the glass, and why we swirl (to get oxygen into the glass and release the aromas). Here’s how to sniff. Here’s how to take enough of a taste to get a sense of the wine.

One of the wines we tasted was a chardonnay from Wente, in Livermore, California. I was pretty happy to find a bottle of their 2019 Morning Fog Chardonnay at my local wine shop.

Livermore is its own AVA, at the eastern end of San Francisco Bay. Cool Pacific Ocean breezes keep temperatures moderate.

It’s got a rich buttery nose, so we already know there’s a bunch of oak! When we swirl, we get lots of legs running down the glass, which means we’ve got high alcohol here. (13.5%, so yep!) On the palate, the richness and roundness continue with restrained hints of fruit.

I know oaked chardonnay is a bit of a sore point with some of you, Constant Readers, but this is one of my favorite styles. The wine has great balance for something at this price point. This would be perfect with roast chicken or maybe some nice fresh trout. This is going to be my cheap and cheerful chardonnay for sitting around the fire pit.

Nice to have this little flashback to where the fun all began! If you can find this at your local shop, I’d love to hear what you think. And wishing all my readers who celebrate a very happy New Year as Rosh Hashanah begins tonight!