Pearl Street Brewery

The hard work has paid off and the move into their own 30 barrel brewhouse has allowed for major increases in production. So, after many years at the Great Taste of the Midwest they’ve brought their beer to Madison and when Joe stopped by last week I didn’t hesitate to bring in the 4 beers he has allocated for our area.

Even though they have expanded their capacity, Pearl Street is still a small brewery, and self-distributing, so you won’t find it everywhere. Barriques Market in Fitchburg and Barriques Wine & Spirits in Middleton are two locations where you can purchase 6-packs to take home.

Still family owned, Pearl Street Brewery has built a reputation for style, quality and independence. Joe and the gang brew on the 30 barrel system, and on their very small rolling, pilot brewhouse, they call the “Mini Mejo” in a reclaimed 100 year old boot factory. They do have a tap room where you can stop in to taste the beers.

The Following beers are available at our Fitchburg and Middleton locations:

Pearl Street Pale Ale
A classic American Pale Ale. Dry hopped for a spicy, floral hop nose with solid bitterness on the palate. Finishes smooth enough to make you want more. 6% abv.

D.T.B. Brown Ale
I’ve only recently come back to brown ales after years of disappointment. This beer has helped restore my faith in the style. Great balance between the nutty, roasty flavors from the malts and the woodsy, spicy hops. I’ve had it with cheeses, meat dishes and desserts…it has paired well with them all.

El Hefe Hefeweizen
When I lived in La Crosse this was the beer of summer. It’s now available all year, and has that classic clove/banana aroma with a not-too-filling crisp wheat body. Some people really like a lemon in this beer, but I think it’s great without it.

That’s What I’m Talkin’ ‘Bout Organic Rolled Oat Stout
Full flavored stout with a smooth mouthfeel making it eminently drinkable. Chocolate and roasty notes dominate the flavors with a good hop edge.

Visit Pearl Street at http://www.pearlstreetbrewery.com/.

-Cheers, David

Plump Jack Winery

We arrived in San Fran late on a Thursday night and were staying at the downtown Hilton. Tired and thoroughly famished, we took the concierges advice and hit up a place called First Crush, right around the corner from hotel. As I had previously stated, we were traveling w/ our favorite ‘drinking couple’, named as such for the propensity of the 4 of us mutually encouraging each other to consume far more adult beverages then is certainly necessary when we go out. We did a fine job living up to those expectations that night and fell into bed anticipating the day ahead. The time change gave me the muscle to get up very early despite the previous nights festivities and I cruised over to a near by Peets coffee for some caffeine. 5:30 in the morning and I was greeted by big smile and two big cups of hot brown water to blow the cob webs away. For the rest of the day we walked our way around the city, first taking the trolley from the Powell & Market turntable all the way over to Fisherman’s Warf. I know what your are thinking, what a bunch of tourists. But alas, I was under orders from my train loving 7 year old that if I didn’t get some footage of us riding a trolley he was going to be ticked. So we trollied. We used our feet from there basically burning most of the day meandering back towards the general direction of our hotel. As a retailer, I marveled at the gazillion little trinkets on display in some of the storefronts in China town, not because there were a gazillion of them, but because I didn’t see so much as a speck of dust on anything. Seriously, what did they do w/ the dust?
That night, we got a very lucky 6:30 reservation at The Slanted Door down in the Ferry Building and had a great, great dining experience. The Riesling/German dominated wine list was like reading greek to me but we got some great advice from the wine steward and had a great time. I heartily recommend a visit to The Slanted Door if you are in the area. After a quick drink at the Water Bar we called it a night.

Saturday, we drove up to Napa with a fairly full day of wine appointments ahead of us.

Art at The Entrance To Artesa

Compliments of the recession, we were staying the night in Yountville at the Vintage Inn. That night we grabbed a fun dinner at Mustards Grill and again crashed early. Sunday we were similarly booked up but I kicked off the morning right w/ an early visit to Bouchon Bakery right across the street. I chatted up the folks manning the ovens, and came back to our room with 9 peoples worth of pastries that my wife and I sat around and gnawed on until we headed over to Joseph Phelps for our first meeting.

Ready to Taste At Joseph Phelps

So here are a couple of my thoughts, take-aways and to-dos from our adventure:

Are you sustainable, I’m sustainable, Let’s be sustainable – During our second day of winery visits as soon as our host started to get the words “horns of manure” out of her mouth I said ‘Woah!’ No more horns, no more manure! W/ one exception every place that we visited harped on the fact that they were far down the path of farming either organically and/or biodynamically. Biodynamic farming in particular, was on the tip of every wineries tongue that we visited. There is a bit of hocus-pocus about some of the practices(100% my opinion) but, in general, this is a great trend that is healthier for them and healthier for the consumer. But boy, I was I tired of hearing about burying cows heads and spraying poop all over the vineyard. In the process of doing some research before I left, I happened up this very well written biodynamic FAQ from Grgich that is a great primer on biodynamic farming. If, you want a bit more cynical take, check out one of my favorite wine blogs, Vinography for his take. Either way, it brought to the surface a longstanding issue we have had at Barriques that we need to finally solve once and for all, the issue of how we can better communicate in our stores, whether a wine is organically or biodynamically produced.

The service industry is capable of great acts of service – I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but it was at dinner on our last night at San Francisco at The Slanted Door and somewhere mid-way through our meal I asked my gang, ‘have you guys noticed how great the service has been at all the places we had eaten over past day?”. I wasn’t just talking about at the relatively expensive Slanted Door where it should be(and was) but at the not-so expensive restaurant we ate at the night before, at 5:30 am where I was first customer in line at the Peets coffee, at lunch that day, everywhere. The longer that we have been in our business at Barriques, most certainly a service business, the more it bothers me when I hear about Barriques giving less then great service and when I hear people bashing the service industry in general, for providing bad service. Barriques has some great ’service providers’ w/ in our company and although some element of customer service training has always been part of our orientation process for our new people I think we need to do some more dedicated training to make sure we are always delivering a great experience.

It is hard to find ‘value’ wines in Napa - By ‘value’ I mean inexpensive, not, good value for the dollar. I know you can find them but you really, really have to try. My winery choices clearly were going to make it hard from the start, but in the process of planning where I was going to go, I’ll be honest, I came up w/ very few places that actual sell ‘value’ wines and that make their way into into Wisconsin. In fact, of the 60 – 70 wines we tried I can only think of only 2 or 3 that would retail for less then $20! Given what is happening in the wine market right, now I would be shaking in my boots if all I had in my portfolio were wines retailing for more then $30. Who is buying that stuff?

That’s it. I’d love to hear any comments or questions and thanks for listening.

-MRW

Stone Brewery Double Bastard

Stone Double Bastard – Just arrived last Friday.
We’re not worthy, but we’re doing it anyway! Huge flavors, high alcohol, big 20oz bottle.

Founders Brewing Company Trio of 4 packs- Breakfast Stout – Brewed with oats, chocolates and coffee. 8.3%abv $10.99
- Curmudgeon Old Ale – Big and balanced; rich malt focus. 9.3% $11.99
- Harvest Ale – Big hop aromas with a very balanced flavor. 6.5% $8.99

Flying Dog has long been one of my favorite breweries and I’ll admit that I first bought it for the great labels (by Ralph Steadman) but I’ve kept drinking it because it tastes so good.

Flying Dog Canis Major Mixed Pack (two 7oz. bottles of each) $10.99
Gonzo Imperial Porter – mysterious and irreverent; brewed in honor of Hunter S. Thompson. 7.8%abv
Horn Dog Barley Wine – Big with notes of licorice and chocolate. 10.2%abv
Double Dog Double Pale Ale – One of the best balanced hoppy beers I’ve had. 11.5%abv
Kerberos Tripel – Dry with hop spice and bottle conditioned. A nice Tripel to tipple. 8.5%abv

We also have a limited supply left of the Flying Dog Dogtoberfest! This won the Gold Medal at the Great American Beer Festival, and yes, it is that good. $8.29

All of these beers are available in Fitchburg.

-Cheers, David

Glenmorangie The Quinta Ruban 12yr

Glenmorangie The Quinta Ruban 12yr – This is the perfect everyday scotch, aged 12yrs in bourbon casks and finished in ruby port casks. Ruban is Gaelic for ruby. The core of this single malt is rich and round with a tinge of sweetness. Aromas of chocolate, roasted nuts, allspice, vanilla with a broad friendly appeal. This is a single malt to fit any mood.

Glenmorangie The Lasanta 12yr – This is much more rabid single malt with all the gnashing teeth and unbridled strength of an Islay. 12 years in bourbon cask with a sherry cask finish. Big, aggressive, bold profile with loads of peat, smoke, pepper spice with a saline sherry quality. This single malt is for pairing with a heavy game stew or a loaded 12gauge shotgun on the prowl for some tail.

Glenmorangie The Nectar D’Or 12yr – Pure beauty, sophistication and elegance is the essence of the Nectar D’Or. 12 years in bourbon cask finished in aged Sauterne barrels. The result is sublime single malt with honeyed aromas of vanilla, cream, apricot, caramel, tobacco wrap, raw walnut and butternut scotch. A perfect wind down, after dinner single malt to contemplate existence.

All three of these selections will be available at Monroe St, Fitchburg and Middleton by Friday, October 24th. If you purchase one bottle of single malt scotch a year, choose your style to match your personality and pick up one of these new single malts. I guarantee that they will make you very happy.
-Finn

Portal del Montsant, Montsant

Originally uploaded by barriques

The next two days of our tour were all about modern Spanish winemaking with some of the most interesting people at the helm of each of the wineries.
We traveled 2 ½ hours south of Villanova where we had our hotel along the coast to the region of Montsant & Priorat. Montsant is a small hilly DO that surrounds the even smaller DO of Priorat. This is the epicenter of international influence on the vinification techniques in Spain.
First stop was at Clos Galena in Priorat with a tour lead by the winery owner Miguel Perez Cerrada. The roads leading into the winery were too small for our bus to navigate so we piled into a series of small off road vehicles to make it up the dirt roads. The hillsides were steep and the vineyards terraced so there was no room for mechanical harvesters, everything was hand picked. The winery is tiny in production and has a year round staff of three. They make only two wines, the Galena and the Clos Galena. Inky black colored wines that are rich deep in black fruits and intensity.
We followed the tour with lunch in Falset at a beautiful tapas restaurant. Courses of tapas hit the table, foie gras on toast, sliced muscatel grapes and sardines, and fresh berries in white chocolate. It was tough work, but someone had to do it.
The afternoon visit was with a new producer, Alfredo Arribas, that I had only tasted one of his wines before called Portal de Montsant. Alfredo is an architect by trade that came out to the region and started the winery in 2003. The winemaking team was international with people from Australia, Spain and U.S. all with an eye on quality. Alfredo retro-fitted an old cooperative winery with bulk cement tanks and filled it with more modern stainless tanks. The wines were over the top, with a gorgeous rose, a racy white and two reds Brunus & Santa Bru that are blends of old vine Carignane, Syrah and Grenache. It was a great visit and I came away feeling that they learned as much from us as we had from them over the 6 hrs that we spent at the winery and dinner.

Next day we visited the 13th winery of the tour Edetaria in Terra Alta. Owned by an incredible man, Joan Angel Liberia, with his father, 72 years of age, and grandfather, 92 years old, still working the winery. The architecture of the winery is very modern and is built on a hilltop surrounded by the estate. Joan has a mix of soil types and vine ages so that everything has to be hand pruned and picked for each wine that they make. Literally row by row or part of a row the grape quality, density and flavor profile changes to which wine they will put the fruit into. As we tasted the wines with Joan it was if he had travelled with the group since day one, as we all felt we had a great mutual interest in the wine industry and it didn’t hurt that he was not light on the humor (a trait we all needed after many long days of travel). You can find the Via Terra Garancha at a Barriques store near you.
We followed up this visit w/ a stop with another interesting, energetic producer Albert Jane of Acustic wines. He says he makes wine because he likes to drink them, a good motto for a winemaker. Albert had named his winery Acustic because his style is “un-plugged” meaning that he believes in his vines and terrior and does little intervention in the cellar to make quality wines. He produces two hedonistic wines, one called just Acustic and the other Brao which means ‘brave’. The Acustic is available at all the Barriques locations and the Brao at Middleton and Monroe St. only. One wine that may only be seen in the U.S. is a 100% old vine Grenache that he had in barrel that basically we as a group decided to buy all of.

Finally our last visit of the tour took us on an airplane to Mallorca in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. A small organic winery committed to quality called Jaume Mesquida. They produce only one wine that we see, the namesake Jaume Mesquida, that is a blend of a native grape Callet, Manto Negro and Cabernet Sauvignon. It is currently available at all Barriques locations except West Wash. The family run winery is now in the hands of Barbara and Jaume Mesquida Mora, brother and sister.
Our last night of tasting was an organized event by Barbara Mesquida at a local hotel with all the wineries that SMS Wines represent that we did not see on the tour because of the grape harvest or long distances apart from any other of the wineries in the portfolio. We hammered thru 30+ wines from Vina Somoza (Valdeorras), Heretat de Taverners (Valencia), Osoti (organic producer from Rioja), and Bodegas Tradicion (Jerez). Each of the winemakers or owners flew in to give a presentation on their wines. Afterwards we had dinner at a seaside restaurant where we delved into the local fair of Gamba’s (shrimp), monk fish, mussels, and more.

I rounded out the tour with a free day in Mallorca spent on the beach with the group of new found friends from my tour. Sunning in the salty Mediterranean Sea and enjoying copious amounts of San Miguel beers (always need some breaks from wine). It was a whirlwind for sure and definitely fun but I’m ready to come home.

Can Nadal, Penedes

We picked up a plane in Pamploma en-route to Barcelona and got picked up by a new bus driver that took us on a 2 ½ hours trek up to the French border to the Emporda region. Emporda is where the Spanish Riviera is located and the most unassuming wine visit of the tour. The Mas Estela Winery sits on a nature preserve surrounded by tall steep hills and terraced vineyards. The winery was family run with everyone in the vineyard hand picking the grapes except for mom because she was busy making a fresh Paella for their visitors. The winery is organic and biodynamic and produces incredible red wines with soul. You can grab bottle of the Mas Estela Quindals at Fitchburg, Middleton & Monroe St. These people forage the hillsides around the winery for herbs, wild asparagus, berries, etc like a modern day Smith Family Robinson!

We followed that up the next day by heading out of Barcelona to the region of Penedes which is famous for Cava, the Spanish version of Champagne. First stop was Mont Marcel, the makers of the Gran Sarao Rose and the Gran Sarao Brut sparkling Cava’s. They are considered to be a small producer at ½ a million cases or so. It was a vision of what a high-paced sparkling company does to bring their product to market. Cave after cave of sparkling wine aging and many automated riddling machines. The bottling line was completely automated as well, going from a glycol bath, to disgorgement, corking, washing, labeling, boxing and onto wrapped palates for shipping. This is clearly the business end of the gun and I’ll admit to it taking a little of the romance out of things when you feel you are in a factory. On the plus side, this efficiency allows them to be able to ship all this great wine over the US and for us to be able to sell it to you for less then 10 bucks a bottle. Small sacrifice I suppose. You can find the Cava and Rose Cava on the Wall of 100 as we speak.
As a counter point to our visit w/ Mont Marcel we visited Can Nadal, a premium Cava house with all the integrity and romance one could dream of in seeing a winery. Their vineyards are biodynamic and are on cycles of crop rotation and sustainability. Their Cava’s have all the elegance and balance with a fine mousse, intricate aromas and beauty on the palate. It was an afternoon of touring, lunch outdoors, delicious Cava and a rousing game of ping pong. We played for pricing and allocations for the US!
The last visit of the day was with a rock star winery named Can Rafols. The winery is owned by Carlos Esteva a self made man from Barcelona that bought the property in the late 1970’s. He is devoted to making the highest quality wines with a fair amount of non-traditional grape varieties (which are mostly illegal according to the DO of the region, but Carlos has friends). Incrozio Manzoni a crazy hybrid of Riesling and Pinot Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Cab Franc, and the wineries top wine Caus Lubis is 100% Merlot. The winery itself was hidden inside the hillside, cut from the limestone with catwalks straight out of a 007 movie. The rooftop was completely concealed under trees, bushes and natural grasses that grew all over the countryside. The wines were spot on with an emphasis on the terrior expression coming thru each wine.

Marco Real winery, Navarre

Originally uploaded by barriques

On Day 3, we visited another Rioja producer Primicia in Laguardia, a very old family winery with traditions that date back to the 14th century. It appeared that the entire family was involved. For centuries, everyone from fathers, uncles, cousins, brothers and has had their hand in the process. I guess it is safe to say that they all knew what they were going to be when they grow up! Something to take note of, the regular inexpensive 07 Rioja Joven (means young vine) is ROCK’N! It should arrive at Barriques sometime in early 2009.
Marco Real in Navarre was the site of our next visit and was the largest winery on the tour. Marco Real makes over 1,500,000 bottles of rose alone which is released in March every year and sells out by July. Eeecks, that’s a ton of pink stuff! I suppose we did our part as well as 3 of us and the next generation owner of the winery downed 5 bottles w/ a tapas dinner later that night. All their wines are incredibly solid and you can find several as constant guest on the Wall of 100. Right now we you should be able to grab a bottle of the Marco Real Tempranillo or the MR Garanacha.
After the tour and dinner with the folks of Marco Real we hit the town in Olite. The night we stayed there it was the Olite’s harvest festival which included a music stage 2 blocks from our hotel. The festival unknown to us was an all-nighter which included a brass band that came down the street slowly and parked in front of the hotel with dancing minstrels in costume from about 3:30am to 5am. When we awoke the next morning after not-so-much sleep we could still hear the parade playing town somewhere off in the distance.

Marques de Vargas, Rioja

Originally uploaded by barriques

The first visit on our 2nd day, was to Conde de San Cristobal in Ribera del Duero with the winery owner Playa, a 14th generation Marques de Vargas. It is a winery that is a mix of the old world and a modern winery inside. They make only one red wine, their namesake Conde De San Cristobal, that mixes power and finesse with an emphasis on terrior. This wine is available in Middleton, Fitchburg and at Monroe St.
Our next visit doesn’t bear too much mention as our host, Steven Miles from Steven Miles Selections has decided to drop them from their portfolio after seeing the cascading problems with their wines since the current generations son has taken over. It is incredibly unfortunate for the father who built up the brand and has some of the best vineyards in the Ribera del Duero. It appeared that the son seemed to enjoy mystique of owning a winery but knew nothing about the business.
The last stop for the day was to Marques de Vargas, the second property for Playa in the region of Rioja. If you have not experienced a bottle of their wine you definitely should. They have three tiers of production Reserve, Privada and Prodolagar. We currently stock the ‘03 Rioja Reserva in Fitchburg, Middleton and Monroe St. If theses wines are not hitting on all cylinders they do not bottle them as they chose not to do with the 05 and 06 vintages. It is a winery the produces wine that will go the distance if you put them in the cellar. Again Spanish hospitality rained upon us with a great meal with the Privada 01 & 04 vintage out of magnum bottles. Lastly, you should also really check out the tasting room at this place in the picture below. I think I can say in all my wine travels it was the most ‘Mint’ setup I’ve ever seen.

El Hada winery, Rueda

Originally uploaded by barriques

Well I am back and alive and well from a whacky fun filled wine tour of Spain. No thanks to American Airlines that did their best or lack there of to leave me somewhere other than my destination. After the unanticipated route thru London, Heathrow airport I ended up landing in Madrid only two hours after the bus with the team left, and was rescued by the export manager Virgine for El Hada winery in Reuda. So a little quality time in the car and the personal nickel tour of the wine region by Virgine and we were able to catch up to the bus at our first hotel. With only an hour of downtime to shake off the jet lag, we hit the road running for our Spanish tour de force.
1st up was a visit was to the El Hada winery in Reuda region of Spain. El Hada makes the freshest crisp fun whites for the table with lots of citrus, honey notes. The 07 El Hada Viura/Verdejo is currently available on The Wall of 100. This was the team’s first experience with Spanish hospitality because after a personal tour by the winemaker and owner Jose Vegas Arranz he took everyone to a local restaurant for dinner. He arranged a multi-course meal (normal for out of town guests) that crescendo to two fully roasted suckling pigs in a stone oven. After the meal everyone needed what they call in Champagne, disgorgement!