WINE WEDNESDAY: A Visit to Baja, Mexico

#winewednesday

happy hour

half price wine tasting 3pm-6pm

today's theme: a trip to baja

 

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The Guardian writes: "A couple of hours from downtown San Diego, just across the Mexican border, lies the Valle de Guadalupe, a place of green valleys and boulder-covered hills. Its dry, hot summers and cooler, damper winters, combined with porous soil and cooling sea breezes, are ideal for grape growing. This northern end of the Baja California peninsula is, in fact, one of the New World's oldest wine-growing areas. Jesuit priests cultivated vines here in the 18th century, and the first commercial winery, Bodegas de Santo Tomas..." (01/2014) full article

  

2012 SANTO TOMAS"BLANCA" MEXICO WHITE WINE, MEXICO ($18.99)

• 100% Mision (aka Mission, the Vitis vinifera variety originally brought over to the Americas from Spain by Catholic New World missionaries) from Baja, Mexico. 
• Mexico’s first commercial winery (est. 1888), Santo Tomas’ vineyards trace their history as far back as the 1500s.
• A crisp, unctuous white, this shows delicate floral aromas accented by fruity notes of Yucatan lime, peach, and tree fruit with a long finish. It’s delicious alongside a variety of foods from seafood ceviche and tacos to pork with green mole sauce.

2014 TELLEZ Y LUYT"BICHI" NEBBIOLO TECATE, BAJA, MEXICO ($22.99)

• 100% Nebbiolo from Tecate in Baja, Mexico
•  Produced by the Tellez family and Luis Antoine Luyt (pioneer of natural winemaking in Chile), "Bichi" is slang for being naked, and Nebbiolo is just that: pure and unadulterated with a sense or terroir and tradition (and a sense of humor)
• Cherry-fruited with ample richness on the palate, balanced flavors, and grip on the finish, this is great with hard cheeses and grilled or roasted meat and game.

2010 BARON BALCHE "RESERVAESPECIAL" VALLE DE GUADALUPE RED BLEND, BAJA, MEXICO ($35.99)

• 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 10% Syrah from Ensenada in Baja, Mexico.
•  Baron Balche is a small production boutique winery that specializes in distinctive blends like this Bordeaux-meets-Mexico style red, aged for 30 months in barrique.
•  A rich, generous wine, this reveals intense fruit aromas with notes of exotic wood spice, layers of flavor on the palate and ripe, silky tannins; enjoy with soft cheese, roast beef or braised goat.

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Happy Hour every Wednesday, 3pm-6pm.
Taste 3 wines for $7.50.
Beer on tap, wines by the glass & tasty snacks available

1114 Mission Street, South Pasadena

more details @missionwines.com
http://www.missionwines.com/default.aspx#

WINE OF THE WEEK: 2014 LES LUNES "DOBSON VINEYARD" MANTON VALLEY CHARDONNAY

Produced from native-rooted vines planted at the foot of Mount Lassen, an active volcano, in the newly designated AVA of Manton Valley, California, this is unlike any California Chard we've ever tasted...in a good (albeit wine-geekish) way. Think Burgundy meets Etna, with a Jura (or is it more Jerez?) twist. Of course, that's to be expected from the talented folks behind the Living Wines Collective, a small cooperative based in Northern California who are all about traditionally made wines and natural farming practices. Sam Barron and Shaunt Oungoulian, the team behind Les Lunes, spent time together and separately in Burgundy, working with reputed domaines from the Macon to Chablis, which inspired them to return home to produce distinctive, terroir-driven Chardonnay from unusual sites in California. The decomposed volcanic soils of the Dobson Vineyard combine with natural, oxidative winemaking techniques to result in a wine that is at once fresh and complex, vibrant and ethereal. Awesome with food (like oysters, sushi or dishes with complex umami flavors), this wine is definitely not for everyone (warning: if you love big, rich, oakey Chardonnays, this is most definitely not for you), it has much to offer the curious wine drinker. Go ahead, drink outside the box!

About the Producer: Les Lunes is a project under the umbrella outfit of the Living Wines Collective, who seek to reference the honest, great wines of California’s heritage, "before money, ego and points got in the way." They manage every detail of the production process by hand. They lease their own vineyards, work their own vines and built their own cellar. Their focus is on vineyard health and they believe that proper vineyard management can eliminate the need for pesticides, preserving the indigenous microbes on the grapes and in the soils. At Les Lunes, everything is 100% organic, neither herbicides nor insecticides are used, which leads to healthier and more complex wines that don’t need tweaking in the cellar. Consequently, they are able to follow the most minimal intervention winemaking to allow the authentic expression of terroir shine through. Nothing was added prior to bottling, and the wine was bottled by gravity flow. 

2014 LES LUNES "DOBSON VINEYARD" MANTON VALLEY CHARDONNAY, CALIFORNIA

Regular: $26.99

This Week: $24.29