lgsjr – Page 6 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

How Power Tasting Goes Wine Tasting

As we celebrate ten years of Power Tasting, we can’t help but look back at all the wineries we’ve been to all around Wine Country. Most of our experiences have been very positive, but there have been a few clunkers along the way. We’ve been across the United States and up into Canada. We’ve tasted wine in half a dozen European countries and have reported on our prior experiences around the globe. We thought it might be a good idea for this anniversary to share with our readers the way we go about reporting on wine tasting.

Photo courtesy of Mintel Store.

First of all, we are very deliberate about choosing where to go wine tasting. We realize that most Americans who enjoy wine tasting are more likely to visit California than anywhere else, and we travel there at least once a year. Yes, we visit Napa Valley and Sonoma County, more than a few times over ten years. But we’ve also been everywhere in the state from Temecula in the south to Lake County in the north and many places in-between. We have been as interested in tasting wine at some of the most famous vineyards, but have equally enjoyed discovering great wine in places we never expected to find it. And we’ve loved sharing these places with our readers. And we try to taste wherever we go in Europe as well.

We perform structured interviews at each winery. If possible, we talk with the tasting room manager, but if that person is not available, we talk with the people who serve us. It’s a plus if we get to meet the winery owner or the winemaker. We document everything we can that might possibly be of interest to our readers, although we know that a lot will never be in print.

Subjects range from rather important matters about the tasting experience to trivia. Of course, we record the wines served and the ones we particularly would recommend. We also try to capture impressions of the architecture, the view and the interiors. We evaluate the knowledge and educational ability of the servers and their general attitude towards their customers. We even take a look at the merchandise they sell, the artwork, the parking facilities and whether they allow picnicking.

We rarely tell the wineries in advance of our visits that we are from Power Tasting and will be reporting on our tasting experience there. On the other hand, we always introduce ourselves to tasting room personnel as being from the e-magazine when we arrive. As much as possible, we want to be treated like all other wine tasters, while at the same time we don’t like to spring a surprise on the servers.

As much as possible, we try to gather information that we think other wine tasters might be interested in. For example, we always ask about wine clubs in American wineries and if they are accommodating to their members requests for changes and special orders. If so it shows how they care about their customers.

Longoria on State

It was around 4:00 pm. We’d been walking around the streets of Santa Barbara pretty much all day, tasting wine as we went. We weren’t driving and we could walk back to our hotel, so we could try one more tasting room if we wanted to. Still, at that time, did we really want to? Well, we did and we’re certainly glad about that.

The tasting room at Longoria on State in Santa Barbara.

We stepped into Longoria on State, which is the only tasting room actually on Santa Barbara’s main drag. We were quite surprised at what we saw. It didn’t look like a typical tasting room but more like an upscale cocktail lounge. There were long banquettes with plush pillows, comfortable chairs and trendy tables. It was a relatively dark room, with track lighting and a huge skylight to brighten it up. The bar was long, tiled and served only wine.

The wines all come from the Longoria winery. Frankly we hadn’t heard about Longoria before tasting there, but we learned that it was founded by Rick and Donna Longoria in Santa Barbara County in 1982. Being among the pioneers of Central Coast winemaking, the Longorias influenced many other winemakers in the area. They sold their winery in 2022 and the new owners, the Christian family, are responsible for the snazzy digs on State Street. (There is another tasting room in Lompoc that we have not visited.)

As is often the case in California, Longoria makes a wide variety of wines. There are several whites, a rosé, some Spanish-style reds and a few blends. But the core of Longoria’s list is Pinot Noir, which is what we enjoyed the most. All of them are from the Santa Rita Hills, which by itself is good indicator of the quality of the terroir. For the most part, all the Pinot Noirs seemed rather elegant to us, with a range of fruitiness and depth among them.

To be fair, the wines we tasted were bottled prior to the sale of the winery, so there may be some changes coming. We hope not, because we really liked what we tried.

The tasting room on State Street is relatively new, not there on our previous visits to Santa Barbara. As mentioned, we arrived at the end of the afternoon; we walked right in and were served. (The Longoria web site does ask for reservations, but as in much of California they’re not always needed.) We have a hunch that later in the day the room may be more crowded. Longoria on State is open until 8:00 most nights and until 9:00 on Saturdays, so that night club vibe might draw more patrons at later hours.

One of our greatest pleasures in wine tasting is discovering fine wines in unexpected places. In that regard, Longoria on State meets both criteria. We would certainly urge anyone who would like to explore Central Coast wines while in Santa Barbara to include Longoria on their itinerary.

Clos Montmartre

Someday, you should visit Paris. And if you’ve already been there, you should go again. It is a city of great beauty, centuries of history, incredible food and, when the Parisians are in the right mood, joie de vivre. Of course, you didn’t need Power Tasting to tell you this. And what does it have to do with wine tasting, anyway?

The answer to that question can be found near the peak of the butte Montmartre, the hill in the north of the city. The Montmartre sector of Paris is famous for many things: as the hangout for many of the greatest artists and poets of the 19^th and 20^th centuries; the home of the can-can at the Moulin Rouge; the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur (Sacred Heart) that watches over Paris. We heartily recommend that you visit, have a meal and wander through the winding streets of the sector.

For those of us who love wine and wine tasting, there is a unique attraction there, known as the Clos Montmartre. It is a functioning vineyard within the borders of the city.

A little history is in order here. For most of its existence, Montmartre was not a part of Paris itself. It was a rural suburb of the city, specializing in wine production. Keep in mind that winemaking and storage techniques were for centuries not up to our current standards. That meant that most wine didn’t age very well; in fact it was best to drink it while it was young. So having vineyards literally just over the hill was quite advantageous.

The Clos Montmartre was attached to an abbey since the 12^th century and was planted then by the Abbess, Adélaïde de Savoie. The abbey was destroyed in the Revolution but the vineyard kept going. This continued until 1860, when the French Emperor decided to modernize Paris. Montmartre was incorporated into Paris, along with other then rural villages. It became the 18^th Arrondissement of Paris. Workmen and artists replaced vignerons and the vineyards were ripped out. In 1933, the local council decided to replant the oldest of them, the Clos Montmartre. It’s only 0.15 hectares and produces 1,700 bottles a year, which are auctioned off to support community projects in the 18^th Arrondissement.

Getting to the Clos Montmartre is a bit of a trek. The nearest Metro stop is Abbesses. Take the stairs (or better, the funicular) to Sacré-Coeur and walk around to the left, then past the Place du Tertre to Rue des Saules. Keep walking and there you are!

As a tourist, you can get a chance to taste the wine from this vineyard in October, when they hold the harvest festival (Fête des Vendanges in French). It is worth just walking by to see a vineyard in an urban setting and to reflect on its connection to so much history: the Middle Ages, the French Revolution, the rebuilding of Paris up to the present day. It is a gentle reminder of the history of wine and its place in the diets and pleasures of Parisians and wine lovers around the world.

A Day in Champagne

We have gone to the Champagne region for wine tasting in the past. The drive from either of the Paris airports seemed a lot easier on the map than behind the wheel. Once you’re there, the countryside is wonderful and the two major cities, Épernay and Reims are fascinating. And, of course, there’s all that sparkling Champagne to try. But let’s say you don’t have the time for several days of wine tasting or you have other things you want to do in Paris. Luckily, there are ways to enjoy a day trip from Paris to Champagne.

Don’t even think of driving. It’s a minimum of 2 and a half hours trip, much of which is spent navigating the streets of Paris as you leave town. And don’t forget, you have to drive home after a day of imbibing.

Pol Roger on the Avenue de Champagne in Épernay.

A better idea is to take a train. There are several each day from Paris to Reims that get you there in only 45 minutes. It takes longer to go to Épernay, an hour and twenty minutes on the fastest trains. All these trains leave from the Gare de l’Est, which is about twenty minutes by taxi from Montparnasse and longer from the Right Bank. (A friendly tip: the croissants at the coffee shop at the Gare de l’Est are delicious and are served warm.)

Yes, it takes longer to go to Épernay, but it is an easy walk to the Avenue de Champagne with one Champagne house after the other, many of which can be visited without a reservation. If you want to tour the cellars at the bigger names, such as Moët and Chandon or Perrier-Jouet, you will need to book in advance.

The Chagall windows in the Cathedral of Reims.

On the other hand, Reims offers other attractions besides wine tasting and has many more spots for a quality lunch while you’re there. The cathedral at Reims is an architectural wonder and the windows painted by Marc Chagall shouldn’t be missed. There are a few Maisons in walking distance of the train station and Mumm is in the center of town. You’ll need a taxi or an Uber to get to most of the better known Champagne houses. Three of them are in close proximity to each other: Taittinger, Veuve Clicquot and Pommery. You can walk easily from one to the other. But you’d better get your reservations closely aligned, with at least an hour and half at each. Lunch is an issue as well in that part of town. There are places to eat, but they’re all rather elegant and pricy.

Unfortunately, the last return trips back to Paris don’t allow a lot of time for a nice dinner, with the last trains leaving at 7:30-ish. However, you do have the chance to keep on with Champagne tasting. La Banque in Épernay and Le Parvis in Reims offer you the chance to compare Champagnes side-by-side and still make your train. Be careful, though. If you’ve been tasting all day, either restrain yourself at the Maisons or take it easy at the Champagne bars. If nothing else, you don’t want to miss your train!

Pommery

Of all the Champagne houses we have visited – and that’s quite a few – Pommery feels the most Californian. There is no Napa palace here but the architecture is palatial and it has its roots in the 19^th century. The grounds are enormous and are dotted with artworks. Pommery has added a large pavilion that shows that the proprietors have recognized that wine tourism is a business that attracts visitors to their brand. (A word about those proprietors: You may see the estate referred to as Vranken-Pommery. That’s because a Belgian fellow named Paul Vranken bought it in 2002.) But the cellars are ancient and the Champagne is the real deal.

The grounds of the Pommery Champagne house, with its “art works”.

Pommery is located in Reims, in a sector where several other Champagne houses reside, so you can easily walk from one to the other. Be certain to line up your schedule, since all the houses offer tours combined with tastings. The working property includes a Tudor-style castle and a French château. The pavilion adjoining these buildings contains the entrance to the cellars, a chic restaurant, some exhibits concerning the history of the firm and a Champagne bar. The most notable exhibit is called the Émile Gallé tun. A tun is a massive wine barrel; this one holds 75,000 liters. It was built to be shown at the 1903 World Fair in St. Louis and illustrates the friendship between France and the United States.

The pavilion at Pommery, with the Émile Gallé tun at the left and the Champagne bar in the center.

As mentioned, there are numerous artworks on the grounds although we were not enamored of the particular pieces being shown on our most recent visit. The dedication to art, both 19^th century and contemporary, is carried through in the cellars. These are reached via a staircase of 116 steps. (There is an elevator for those who can’t handle the stairs.) There is a history to the cellars, which were adapted from Gallo-Roman chalk pits. As the guide explains how Champagne is made and what the various areas in the cellars are used for, much attention is paid to the art installed throughout. Some of it is contemporary and edgy; others were installed when the cellars were created.

116 steps into the cellars!

Once the tour is over, you are led back to the pavilion where you can drink some bubbly. A glass of Champagne is included in the cost of the tour, at various levels of quality and price. Since each visitor gets only one glass, it’s not really a tasting, but it is possible to buy more glasses at the bar. There are comfortable seating areas in the pavilion where you can enjoy your drinks.

There is a certain sameness to all tours of Champagne houses (or for those of domestic sparkling wineries, for that matter.) All of the other attractions give a visit to Pommery a certain spice not found elsewhere. So does the history of the Maison. It was founded in 1836 and, under the management of the founder’s widow, it became one of the world’s largest producers, producing up to a million cases annually today. In the 19^th century, all Champagne was intensely sweet, with up to 300 grams of sugar per liter. Madame Pommery invented brut, which today must have less than 12 grams per liter. It’s worth raising a glass to her at the winery that bears her name just for that achievement.

France Isn’t California

If you’re an American who enjoys going on wine tasting trips, there are many places to go in your own country, but unquestionably the premier destination is California. On the other hand, if you are looking to have a wine tasting adventure abroad, the first place that generally comes to mind is France. At a very elementary level, the experiences are the same. You visit a winery or a tasting room; they pour you some wine; and you taste it. The resemblances end there.

Map courtesy of About-France.com.

California’s wine regions extend from Temecula in the south, through the Central Coast, to Napa and Sonoma counties and up to Mendocino and beyond. Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay are king and queen, thought there are sections that specialize in Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Syrah. While there is some regional variation, each winery offers a range of wines from different grapes.

In France, almost every sector grows its own distinct grapes, by law. Whatever variation you’ll find in a given winery is different levels of quality of wines from the same grapes. So, if you’re used to wine tasting in California, here are some tips for tasting in France.

Choose regions with the type of wine you like. This is as simple as choosing between red and white wine. Let’s say you’re starting in Paris. Go east for Champagne and further to drink Chardonnay in Chablis and even further for Riesling in Alsace. If you want reds, head to Burgundy in the east (where there’s plenty of Chardonnay as well) or south to Bordeaux or Provence.
Don’t just go to the most famous regions. There are so many high quality winemaking regions in France that if you bypass Chablis for white wines and go to the Loire Valley south of Paris, you’ll do quite well with Vouvray and Sancerre. If you go to the Southwest or Languedoc for red wines, you won’t taste a premier cru, but you won’t face the crowds and the costs either. Think of it as wine tasting in Santa Barbara instead of Napa Valley.
Most places don’t have seated tastings. At the same time, you will often need reservations to visit wineries in Bordeaux or Champagne. In much of France, you can just pull up to a vineyard and ask the person in the tasting room (often the owner) to taste their wines. If you can remember the olden days in California’s premier wine areas, much of France’s wineries are like what that was, but not anymore.
If you stick with a sub-region, wineries are fairly close to one another. In California, even if you stick to a specific AVA, say Russian River within Sonoma County, you’ll do a lot of driving. If you just do Pommard or Pauillac, you won’t need to go very far from one châteaux to another.
Oh, yeah, they speak French. If you do, too, then visiting is a breeze. These days, most French people can speak at least a little English so you can get by. A lot can be accomplished by pointing and smiling. Frequent use of the words s’il vous plait and merci is a good idea.

Weinbau Prinz

Before we introduce you to this particular winery, we’d like to say a few words about how we got there. We visited Vienna for the first time and fell in love with the city. Our purpose was not wine tasting, but as long as there was an opportunity to see some vineyards, we couldn’t resist (of course). Quite frankly, we don’t usually like to take a tour for wine tasting purposes, but in this instance, we thought it was the best choice. Not every winery we visited was worth reporting, but Weinbau Prinz (www.weinbauprinz.at) was a very pleasant experience so we’re pleased to share it with our readers.

Weinbau is a German word for viticulture or wine growing, what we would call a winery. This particular one is owned by Roswitha and Martin Prinz, who are from winemaking families stretching back for centuries. Their small (3.1 hectares) vineyard is located in the village of Stetten in the winemaking district known as the Weinviertel, the largest in Austria. The Weinviertel (“wine quarter” in German) abuts Vienna and this winery is only a 45 minute drive from the city center.

The village church in Stetten, Austria rising over the vines of Weinbau Prinz.

The wine tasting experience at Weinbau Prinz is highlighted by the setting. Your party is seated at a long table right in the vineyard, with the steeple of the village church looming over you. If, like us, you have seen scenes like this in the movies and were ever-so-eager to do it yourself, you’re hooked before you even take the first sip.

Tasting in the Weinbau Prinz vineyards.

The wines are poured by Roswitha Prinz herself. (Martin is the cellar guy.) Besides owning the winery, she is a lecturer at BOKU, which we gather is the Viennese university for viticulture. She seems unfazed at answering questions from those who know little about Austrian wine or wine in general, as well as from wine snobs. You get all kinds in the wine business, we guess.

Weinbau Prinz is proud to proclaim that they have been fully organic (or bio as they say in Europe) since 2018. For a small vineyard, they make quite a wide variety of wines, ranging from the inevitable Grüner Veltliner, through a white blend they call, simply enough, Cuvee Weiss to some sparkling wines known in Austria as sekt. Weinbau Prinz has a number of wines made from unusual (to us) white grapes, including Blütenmuskateller, Donauriesling, Cabernet Blanc, and Sauvignac. Although the Weinviertel is primarily known for white wines, they also offer a few Zweigelts, a red grape more frequently found in Western Austria.

We’ll leave it to others to discuss the subtleties of aroma and taste of the wines at Weinbau Prinz. Power Tasting is all about the wine tasting experience, not wine reviewing. If your objective is an enjoyable hour well spent, in scenery that seems to come from the winemaking Tourism Bureau, we recommend Weinbau Prinz without reservation. Oh, maybe a reservation would be a good idea, since they welcome tours.

Café Central and Others

Vienna is a city that was built to be the capital of a vast empire, one that had reigned over great swaths of Central Europe for centuries. Then the Austrians fought on the wrong side in two disastrous World Wars. The empire disappeared but the imperial grandeur of Vienna remained. What was a good Viennese to do in these circumstances? The answer is obvious: stop for a coffee and have some cake.

Dotted throughout the city are cafés and konditorei (bakeries specializing in pastries, as opposed to bread). Many of them were built more than a century ago and continue to serve strong coffee, often with steamed milk or mit schlag (with whipped cream). If you want the 50-50 coffee and steamed milk, ask for a mélange.

Café Central in Vienna, with the usual line of tourists waiting to be admitted.

The most noted of Vienna’s coffee houses is Café Central, located in an elegant building that once housed the Stock Exchange. The interior seems more like a movie set than any Starbucks would ever dream of. With its marble columns, vaulted ceilings, globed chandeliers and parquet floor, Café Central looks like a little bit of an idealized 19^th century that just decided not to go away. Which it is.

The interior of Café Central, with one of its pastry cases and Peter Altenberg waiting up front.

Today you are as likely to hear American accents at the table next to you than German ones. But there’s an echo of Grand Dukes, intellectuals, revolutionaries, movie stars and spies that you can imagine you can hear. Andy why not? Café Central was frequented by many other influential minds of the last century including Stefan Zweig, the novelist; Artur Schnitzler, the dramatist; Sigmund Freud; and Leon Trotsky, who was evidently a demon chess player before he got back to Russia. One of them, the poet Peter Alternberg, was such a Café Central habitué, that there is now a statue of him sitting by the door, waiting for a table no doubt.

You can get a meal in many coffee houses, including Café Central, but there are better places to eat. It’s the pastries that are the pride and joy of Vienna. Chocolate! Crumble! Mousse! Jam! Nuts! All spun together in miraculous inventions and fantasies of sweetness. Desserts stand alone as a reason for living in Vienna, so it seems, and it’s very easy for a visitor to get right into the swing of things.

Perhaps the best known Viennese pastry is apple strudel, with its flaky crust and a hint of cinnamon. Then there’s something called kaiserschmarrn, which translates roughly to “the emperors mess”. It’s a thick, chopped-up pancake served with powdered sugar and preserves. Evidently Emperor Franz Josef loved it, as did we.

Service at Café Sacher.

The pastry most closely identified with Vienna is called Sachertorte, invented at and still proudly served at Café Sacher. It’s a two-layer, dense chocolate cake with apricot jam between the layers and a thick fudgy icing. Served mit schlag, of course. Don’t leave Vienna without trying it.

Both Café Central and Sacher are very popular with tourists, so there’s often a long line outside waiting to get in. It’s worthwhile to make a reservation and skip the line, but it’s not that easy to book a table at the times you might want. You won’t do badly at any of the hundreds of other cafés in town, but patronizing the best known ones is part of the charm of a trip to Vienna.

Wine Tasting in Restaurants

The best way to get to know the wines of any section of Wine Country is to travel there and taste those wines in view of the vineyards. Essentially, that’s what Power Tasting is all about. But most of us don’t have the wherewithal to jet off around the globe, just to check out the latest trends and vintages.

So, you can go to your local shops and buy a bottle from a region you may have read about. There are a number of problems with that approach. You’re at the mercy of the distributors who supply that shop and may not have a good selection from the region you’re interested in. (Since this issue is focused on Austrian wines, let’s use that country as our example.) The wine store may have two Grüner Veltliners, a Blaufränkisch and that’s it. You don’t know too much about these wines either, so it’s a crap shoot that you’re not likely to win.

Wallse in New York, our favorite Austrian restaurant. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Another alternative is to visit a restaurant that specializes in the food from the region you’re interested in. It surely has some of the wines you’re interested in and someone who knows a bit about them. But it’s not that straightforward, either. So here are a few tips for doing your wine tasting in a restaurant.

Choose the right cuisine. This should be obvious, but it’s worth stressing. If you don’t enjoy the food, you probably won’t be thrilled with the wine either, no matter how well-chosen the list. So if wiener schnitzel and goulash aren’t your thing, maybe wine tasting in an Austrian restaurant won’t work out well for you.
Sit at the bar. Even if you do like the cuisine, it’s a bit much to have to pay for a meal just to sample the wines. Most restaurants have a by-the-glass list; this is a good way to take a preliminary tour across the grapes and vintages that are made in the restaurant’s native country. There are some drawbacks to this approach, however. The wines on the by-the-glass list are generally not the best and are often among the least expensive of their types. So while you may taste a broader variety, you may not get to sample the qualities that are associated with a particular type of wine.
Don’t taste alone. This is good advice for wine tasting in general, but where you’re interested in an introduction to the variety of a particular region, you shouldn’t be knocking back full glasses, much less whole bottles. Of course, those quantities are how restaurants sell wine, so if you’re with someone with whom you’re comfortable sharing, you’ll try more and drink less.
Get help. If you don’t know anything about the wines or the labels, ask the sommelier or the bartender for the one wine that would serve as a good introduction to what that country produces. It’s a good question, not easy to answer. (Could you pick just one wine that typifies California, for instance?) The sommelier might be able to give you a few sips to help him or her understand your taste in wine, thereby giving you a broader sample right up front. More important, you’ll get your feet – er, your lips – wet right at the start.
You can come back. If you find you like what you’ve tried, you can always dine or drink at that restaurant again. And if you are tasting at a restaurant far from home, you’ll have a basis for sampling at some other restaurant near you.

Discovering Austrian Wines

There are many ways to become acquainted with the wines of any particular nation that contains a section of Wine Country. Some countries are so large that it is meaningless to talk in any specific way about, say, American wine or French wine or Italian wine. These nations produce so much wine and distribute it so widely that we are more likely to sip specific regions such as Napa or Bordeaux or Tuscany, with many subdivisions within them.

Then there are countries that are so small that almost all their wine production is consumed at home. For example, Power Tasting recently featured wine tasting in Croatia, a country that clearly fits that model. It isn’t that they make bad wines; in fact there are many excellent ones. It’s just that their grapes and their wineries are too poorly known to justify international distribution.

There is a small group of countries in the middle, with a long history of winemaking and the quantity and quality to send their wines overseas. Some have gained renown in recent years, including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Others have just begun to garner some attention. Austrian wines are among these.

There are many Central European countries that make wine. Sadly, many of these fell under Soviet domination after World War II and found their native vines torn out and their winemaking facilities converted to Russian tastes. Austria adopted neutrality then and were spared. Still, Austria is only 32,000 square miles, with much consisting of mountains, and its population is only 9 million. Still, their wines are catching on in the US.

Photo courtesy of Vivino US.

In our experience, Austrian wines were essentially unknown in the United States until a craze for Grüner Veltliner began around the turn of the millennium. And why not? Here was a white wine that wasn’t quite like anything else most people had tasted. Maybe just as important, it was everything California Chardonnay wasn’t. It was light, refreshing, unoaked, not very expensive and went well with almost everything except a rare steak. We Americans couldn’t quite pronounce it, but we liked it. (It’s more like greener velt-leaner than grooner felt-liner, as many of us said it.)

With that initial experience, many Americans, ourselves included, sought opportunities to try other Austrian wines, particularly the reds. We are fortunate that there is an excellent Austrian restaurant, Wallse, in our neighborhood, with an extensive wine list. [There is more in this issue about wine tasting in restaurants.] Our first try was Zweigelt, which some people describe as a lighter red but we’ve always found quite dense. The wine is named for a Dr. Felix Zweigelt, who created the grape by cross-breeding two other varietals.

Those two varietals were Blaufränkisch and Sankt Laurent. The former grape translates to French Blue, but it doesn’t seem to have any French derivation. It makes rich, tannic wines, often vinified in a style evocative of Northern Rhônes. It quickly became our favorite Austrian wine, perhaps because it complements wiener schnitzel so well. We recently got around to trying Sankt Laurent and find it very much like Pinot Noir. We’ve read that DNA studies confirm that parentage.

It’s fun to discover a whole new world of taste sensations, and having a source of so many fine examples of Austrian wine just up the street makes it even more enjoyable for us.