Behind the Bar - Wine for the Holidays
Behind the Bar
w/Sue Hanna
featuring Wines for The Holidays
Piper-Heidsieck 1785 NV Champagne, France
Kickoff your holiday gathering with a glass of this delightful Champagne. Bubbles go with everything, but for your holiday meal, we recommend pairing this with your cheese platter.
From the Winemaker:
Piper-Heidsieck carefully selects fruit from more than 100 of Champagne's crus to blend the Cuvee 1785. This adds great complexity and dimension to the wine and allowed the bold Piper-Heidsieck style to shine through. A majority blend of Pinot Noir provides structure to the composition while Pinot Meunier expands the wine with its brilliant fruit expression and fleshiness and Chardonnay bring elegant tone
Walt 2022 Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills, Santa Barbara County, CA
Pinot Noir is a classic pairing with Thanksgiving dinner. The gentle acidity and soft tannins work beautifully with the roasted turkey.
From the Winemaker:
Our Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir is crafted from a blend of vineyards that express the unique character of this region. From rolling hills to high elevation sites, the vines are exposed to fog and cooling ocean breezes. The resulting wine is rich, spicey and bursting with concentrated flavors.
95 Points – Wine Enthusiast, Editor’s Choice
Ridge 2021 Zinfandel Paso Robles, CA
Sometimes you want to pump up the volume on traditional turkey – smoker anyone? This Zin is the perfect pairing.
From the Winemaker:
This Paso Robles Zinfandel shows the exotic spice typical of the vineyard and the freshness of firm acidity. Fifteen months in oak has brought these elements into balance. Enjoyable on release, it will develop further over the next eight years. Blend: 95% Zinfandel, 5% Petite Sirah
94 Points – Jeb Dunnuck, 93 Points – Wine Spectator
Merryvale, Antigua NV Muscato Napa Valley, CA
Pumpkin, pecan, or apple pie, Antigua enhances all of these classics Thanksgiving desserts.
From the Winemaker:
Golden/amber in color from its long aging in French oak, the wine is a complex combination of nuts and orange-peel aromas. Thick and rich in the mouth, the nuts and orange-peel theme continues from the entry through the long finish, highlighted by the many subtleties from the fine brandy and time in the barrel.
The template for what is now our Antigua Dessert Wine was initially crafted at Beaulieu Vineyards by iconic Napa Valley winemaker André Tchelistcheff in the 1960s. Antigua is produced using the solera process, a system of fractional blending over a number of vintages—in this case, over decades. In the late 1980s, Merryvale purchased the last barrels of wine Tchelistcheff initially crafted which was made from vintages 1970 to 1983. Using these barrels as the base, Merryvale began crafting the later vintages that comprise the Antigua solera. The must was partially fermented, and fermentation was arrested by the addition of fine pot-still brandy. Merryvale made this wine from vintages 1992 through 1997. Today, our Antigua solera is an average of 35 years old.
