Dear Feastlings,
After all the years you’ve come to these tastings, you’ve gotten an occasional peek behind the curtain as to how the beverage industry operates. Big conglomerates occasionally gobble up the little guys, and smaller distributors occasionally merge with other small distributors in order to hold fast to some of the individuality they have rather than becoming a cog in a bigger machine. Sometimes, it comes off without a hitch. Sometimes, it’s rather a boondoggle.
If you’ve missed our friend Emilie, you’re not alone- we’ve missed her too. Despite the fact that she was working for two different companies and they merged with one another, it turns out there was no advantage to it whatsoever. Upon the merger, there was an issue of moving product to a new warehouse, and a new inventory system. For both companies. We didn’t see poor Emilie for weeks. Why? Because she couldn’t access her wines. Nobody could. We tried to reorder wines we already had on the list, and would only occasionally receive them. We wanted to taste and sample some of the wines we hadn’t seen before, also to no avail. So for a month or more, Emilie and her relationship with us has been in what was essentially a state of suspended animation. This Saturday, though, it’ll be the figurative thawing of Walt Disney’s head: Emilie is back, and Synergy and Tappa will throw open the door to their bunker and emerge under the Tappa name, so we thought we’d sample some wines from the Phoenix that’s arising from the ashes of this bumpy, bumpy merger, some Old World, some adamantly New World, all delicious, and we’ll throw in some food pairings besides. I’d post the food pairings, but due to post-merger traumatic ripple effect, one of the wines we were all set to pour is not in fact available, so a last-minute change means I’ll have to taste the new wine when it arrives in another day or two, write the food pairing, and hope that we have all the ingredients we need for it on hand.
The tasting, should you decide to join us, is $40 plus tax and tip and includes hefty tastes of the four wines, plus a food pairing with each one. For now, I’ll post the wines, the tasting order and the food pairings to the best of my ability, i.e. without a pairing figured out yet for the TOR “Chasing Windmills,” but I’ll soon be cobbling together a snack around the wine, and I’ll update the tasting sheet and include it. The tasting begins at 2:00 pm this Saturday, December 30th.
Also, should you decide to join us, I’d recommend a reservation, which can be had by calling us at (520) 326-9363. We hope you’ll join us.
The aftermath
You can see the tasting order, the pricing, and eventually all the food pairings here. (it’s been updated!)
2022 Olivier Dumaine “La Croix du Verre” (Marsanne,) Crozes-Hermitage
2020 Olivier Dumaine (Syrah,) Saint-Joseph
2019 Jonata “Fenix” (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot,) Ballard Canyon, Santa Ynez Valley
2019 TOR Fulldraw Vineyard “Chasing Windmills” Syrah/Grenache, Ballard Canyon