Feast offers a wine tasting every Saturday, another on the last Sunday of each month, and occasional wine dinners. Subscribe to our email list and you'll be the first to know about all of them.
Our good friend and former dining room manager Dylan Higgins graces us this month with his presence at a tasting of wines among the pines. Arizona might be one of the states in the Four Corners, but for our money, the spot where Italy, Austria and Slovenia converge makes for better wine production.
Once in a while, a producer makes such delicious wines across the board that we like to feature them in a tasting with no interference from the outside world. Paul Jaboulet Aine is one such producer.
This week may be a bit cooler than last, but face it: we're still in Arizona, and it's still well within reason to think about a crisp bottle of white wine with dinner, or even without dinner.
Kevin is getting into the spirit of our much-anticipated autumn by pulling out some heartier red wines this week, at our Saturday tasting themed "By Rhône inspired." Not a one from the Rhône proper, but Rhône varietals- two from elsewhere in France and from sunny California.
The red wines of Bordeaux are a trifecta of fruit, power and brilliance. There's the terroir, to be sure, and the winemaking, and the oak, and styles favoring one aspect or another way throughout the region, and each varietal brings to the table a different aspect: Cabernet Sauvignon brings tannin- power and body and grip. Merlot brings abundance of dark fruit and plush texture.
Those of you who've been attending our monthly wine tastings for any significant length of time know that we periodically host a wine tasting designed to create trust. We call these tastings the "Trust Your Importer" series, the idea being that most of us can't possibly have tasted and familiarized ourselves with the massive selection of wines available to us all at any given moment.
I don't imagine you'll find anything particularly savage about these Sauvignon Blancs, but this Saturday, Kevin will be opening SB's from all over the place, so whether you're fond of the grapefruit-and-gooseberry style that hails from New Zealand or the dry, gravelly stuff from Cheverny, you'll find something interesting here.
You've tasted Cabernet Sauvignon with us, and Syrah and Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc. But this week, the usual suspects have been kicked to the curb.
Nothing cuts through that monsoon season humidity like white wine, and more specifically like white Burgundy.
Maybe it's because you just don't have it in you that day, or maybe it's because that was already the second bottle, but whatever the reason, you cork it and come back to it only to discover that the fruit's fallen off, or it tastes like oxidized prunes now, or some such problem.