Lou Wine Shop & Tastings

Tonight's tasting

Tonight's tasting: Georgia, or what's old is new again with importer Stetson Robbins

Tonight's tasting

Tonight's tasting: cheap dates

In the wine trade, some folks categorize certain wines as “premium,” which inevitably evokes gasoline in my literal-brained mind. “Value,” and “luxury” are other terms of parlance, but they don’t evoke much at all—value is nearly empty of signification, other than the SuperValu supermarket chain (RIP); luxury, for some reason, evokes a velvet-lined casket holding glinting gems that only the few, the elect may pour through their hands with a cackle. These are economic categories with price points attached to them: a value wine is under ten dollars on the shelf, whereas a luxury wine will set you back fifty or a hundred dollars. But the quality of a wine is not a static value, not the donnée. If you hold a Franzia bag-in-box aloft and guzzle straight from the box, lips around the spigot, and declare it to be the best damn thing you’ve ever put in your mouth, I can’t argue with you—you do you. I can’t feel lousy for not drinking all the fine, aged Burgundy that I know, just know in my heart that I truly deserve because I am not a rich man. I do get to drink good Beaujolais, Lambrusco, Loire chenin, Austrian furmint, Langhe nebbiolo, etc., etc. with regularity, but when do I ever pause and regret that I am missing out, “I’d really rather be drinking Lafarge Volnay”? Now, back in the day, Europeans required wine, as it provided significant calories to an oft meager diet. Today, despite Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that wine is a necessity of life, no one need drink wine. To be sure, for nearly every human being on earth a twenty, or even ten-dollar bottle of wine is an impossible luxury. That said, with some simple, reasonably priced wines, depending on context, the phase of the moon, the vagaries of your neurochemistry, the hedonic pleasure-o-meter’s needle goes to ten, and there is no 11. You could die a happy person at that very moment as you drain the bottle (but please don’t, I like having you around). It is a profound mystery how yeasts and bacteria transmute what would otherwise b a delicious fruit juice into something like this, and how is it that a simple, ugh, “value” wine can, at times, be every bit as momentarily luxurious as a jewel in a casket?

Tonight's tasting

Tonight's tasting: the wines of Martin Gojer 6-8 PM

Tonight's tasting 6-8 pm

Tonight's tasting 6-8 pm + we're open July 4th, too!

Tonight's tasting: cold red wines for hot summer nights

Tonight's tasting

Tonight's tasting: how not to jump the shark

Tonight's tasting 6-8 pm no reservations neeeded

Tonight's tasting

Tonight's tasting 6-8 pm

The heart of dorkness

Tonight's tasting

Tonight's tasting

Tonight's tasting 6-8 pm no reservations needed

Tonight's tasting: wines from José Pastor

Tonight's tasting: selections from José Pastor

https://mailchi.mp/017e33c404c2/tonights-tasting-chenin-blanc-chenin-noir

Tonight's tasting: chenin blanc, chenin noir

https://mailchi.mp/27656492352d/tonights-tasting-orange-wines-from-hither-and-yon

Tonight's tasting: orange wines from hither and yon

https://mailchi.mp/fa4b97dcdaa1/this-weeks-tasting-lesser-and-not-so-known-varieties-that-you-should-put-in-your-mouth

This week's tasting: lesser (and not so) known varieties that you should put in your mouth

https://mailchi.mp/46583936088e/tonights-tasting-galicia-and-beyond

Tonight's tasting: Galicia and beyond

https://mailchi.mp/6f50ab1856bb/tonights-tasting-piemonte-core-and-periphery

Tonight's tasting: Piemonte core and periphery

https://mailchi.mp/27d8d7969238/tonights-tasting

Tonight's Tasting

https://mailchi.mp/2ec76bfdaf08/this-weeks-tasting

This week's tasting

https://mailchi.mp/75b2e34bf668/this-weeks-tasting-meet-and-taste-with-john-locke-of-birichino

This week's tasting: meet and taste with John Locke of Birichino

I'm always interested in the use of quotes on signs such as this. Could they mean:

A. So-called, ersatz "French" wine
B. The sign is speaking

Strained black walnuts after three months of maceration. I used 190 proof culinary ethanol. Picked green in June. They have now surrendered their flavors to the menstrum. I compost these remains: It's the strong, pure walnut liquor I'm after. Soon, I will blend with some red wine and other stuff, e.g., dried bitter orange peel.

Ok, I innocently tried to take a quick closeup of my California native walnut liquor before I strain it. And this psychedelic image is what my camera saw. Perhaps my camera knows something that I do not, yet.

https://mailchi.mp/f2b67330c664/tonights-tasting-co-fermentations-utopian-promise

Tonight's tasting: co-fermentation's utopian promise

Detail of the cover of issue eight of The Journal of Poetry, edited (and drawn) by Ted Berrigan. 1964. Saw this and many other mind-blowing paintings, prints, documents, and things at the show New York: 1962-1964.

Old fermenter hatch, I think, or perhaps a shaman ritual object 's family winery.

Customers are our salvation. Thank you, customers, for supporting our small business and for the dogs.