Review: Belfour Rye Whiskeys and Pecan Finished Bourbon
Belfour sounds like a ritzy, old-school name from the deep south, and I was surprised to find that the brand was founded and is operated by Ed Belfour, a legendary Canadian hockey player who’s now making whiskey in Louisville, Kentucky. Belfour and his two children spent years taking classes in whiskeymaking, and rather than source…
Review: Dominio Fournier Ribera del Duero 2016 Crianza and 2014 Reserva
Up next we have a pair of deep reds from Dominio Fournier in Spain’s Ribera del Duero region. Located in Burgos, the Fournier winery was built in 1979 and is made up of 80 hectares, 50 of which are vineyards with an average age of between 30 and 70 years old. The wines, made from…
Review: Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Mon Chéri Stout (2019)
We were able to get our hands on several of this year’s Goose Island Bourbon House line (Bourbon Barrel, Wheatwine, and Café de Olla). Our luck continued with their Mon Chéri Stout, a beer described by the brewery as “a love letter” from the brewer to his wife, who apparently really likes cherries. To that…
Review: Frey Ranch Bourbon
It doesn’t get much more craft than this: Nevada’s Frey Ranch Bourbon is grown, malted, distilled, matured, and bottled all on property, a ranch based in the Lake Tahoe/Sierra Mountains watershed. The whiskey is made from an odd four-grain mash: 66.6% non-GMO corn, 11.4% winter cereal rye, 10% winter wheat, and 12% two-row barley. It’s…
Review: 2019 Seven Hills Sauvignon Blanc and Dry Rose
Here’s a duo of summertime wines from Seven Hills, which can be found in Washington’s Walla Walla Valley. 2019 Seven Hills Sauvignon Blanc Columbia Valley – Straightforward and pale as a ghost, this Washington sauvignon blanc is innocuous and inoffensive, an exploration of grassy, lightly spicy apples and lemon curd, with a tinge of sauvi-centric…
Review: The Fighting 69th Irish Whiskey
A new Irish whiskey, The Fighting 69th, landed on our shores late in 2019, but the inspiration for this bottle reaches way back in American history. After immigrating from Ireland to New York in the mid-1800s, the men that eventually formed the city’s “69th” had a long history of heroism. Robert E. Lee christened the…
Review: 2019 Domaine de Cala Coteaux Varois en Provence
We’ve given the backstory on Provence-based Domaine de Cala before, so won’t repeat ourselves. Today we dig in to the winery’s entry-level rose, a blend of grenache (48%), cinsault (35%), rolle (6%), syrah (5%), carignan (4%), and grenache blanc (2%). Again, this wine is so pale that it could pass for a white wine. Floral…
Review: White Wines of Alois Lageder, 2020 Releases
Italy’s Alto Adige is a mountainous region that borders Germany, and it’s here where the nation makes some of its most interesting and unusual white wines. Alois Lageder is a longtime icon of this region, where his family has been producing wine since 1823. Recently we had the chance to check out three new whites…
