Two wineries of the many we have visited are celebrating their anniversaries this weekend. Pearmund Cellars in Broad Run, Virginia is celebrating its 8th Anniversary. In Geneva, Ohio Laurello Vineyards is celebrating its 9th Anniversary. Congratulations to both wineries!

Pearmund Cellars is celebrating their anniversary over the long weekend. Visitors are invited to bring their own grill with a reminder to observe grilling etiquette. In addition the winery is offering visitors a challenge. “Here’s a challenge…come dressed as your favorite Revolutionary War personality (we’ll accept either side of the conflict) and receive $17.76 off a bottle of wine.” No stilts please!

On Saturday Bad to the Bone Smokehouse will be at the winery. Smoked chicken, pulled pork, and chicken wings plus more will be available for purchase. For more information check out the Pearmund Cellars’ website.

In Ohio, Laurello Vineyards is celebrating their 9th Anniversary with the purchase of your first in-house bottle of wine, you will receive a free small cheese tray and crackers. This offer is good on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Laurello is also offering specials on their Pinot Noir, Muscat Blanc and Gewürztraminer for a limited time. Music this weekend will include Uncharted Course and 4 Kings and a Queen. For times and more information visit Laurello Vineyards’ website.

The menu for this weekend includes grilled burgers, grilled chicken caprese sandwiches and the Laurello Vineyards special pizzas that include bacon, artichoke hearts and sun dried tomatoes.

Yesterday was the special Beaujolais twitter tasting event, Red, White, and Beaujolais: Celebrate the 4th with Refreshing Wines. Visit the Discover Beaujolais website for a replay of Cover It Live. Four different Beaujolais wines were tasted over a 1½ hours. Here on the East Coast the event started at 7:00 pm. We wanted to share the experience with others and invited two other couples to share the wine tasting.

Beaujolais wines are not as well known as other wines. Beaujolais region is located in France south of the Burgundy wine region. The primary varietal grape in Beaujolais is Gamay.

The wines were light to medium bodied and perfect for warm summer days. It was interesting to note that two of the corks were synthetic, rather a surprise from France which is often thought to be steeped in tradition. The wines paired well with salmon, barbecued hamburgers, chicken and sausage.

Our guests enjoyed all of the wines and there were only positive comments about all four wines. The favorite wine was Beaujolais-villages, Chateau Luc du Tracot 2009.

If you are interested in Beaujolais wines for July 4th or anytime, here is a list of the ones we tasted.

2010 Rosé d’ Folie, Terres Dorées, Jean-Paul Brun ($14.99)
2009 Beaujolais Blanc, Georges Duboeuf, a Chardonnay ($11.95)
2009 Beaujolais-Villages, Chateau Luc du Tracot ($11.95)
2010 Chiroubles, Damien Coquelet ($18.99)

Many thanks to John Slighte from Social Media Group who asked us to participate in this Beaujolais wine tasting.

Enjoy the 4th of July with a glass of wine!

Cheers, Kathy

We had a barbecue last evening and paired the food with four wines from the Beaujolais wine region of France. The last wine was the 2010 Chiroubles. In a casual survey, our dinner guests preferred the Beaujolais Villages, Château Luc du Tracot, however it was interesting to note that the bottle of the Chiroubles was the first bottle emptied.
The 2010 Chiroubles was alluring. Even though our guests indicated they preferred another wine, they kept reaching for the Chiroubles made from 100% Gamay grapes. The image of a rooster on the label detracted from the sophistication associated with French wines. Yet sophistication was trumped by allure. The dark ruby color with a light rim indicated the youth of the wine. The aroma had dark fruit and spice notes. There was plum on the taste and the fruit yielded to spice on the finish. Licorice and cedar predominated the aftertaste.

This wine was paired with barbequed chicken. This was an easy pairing to remember since there is a chicken on the wine bottle’s label. The chicken was also spice, coated with Penzeys Spices Northwoods Seasoning. The Northwoods Seasoning is a blend of Hungarian sweet paprika, Tellicherry black pepper, thyme, rosemary, garlic and chipotle. The seasoning gave the chicken a nice spicy taste that matched well with the wine.

Consider wines from Beaujolais during 4^th of July celebrations. They are light and pair well with barbecued foods.

Cheers,
Terry

Tonight on Twitter, four Beaujolais wines will be tasted and tweets written. The Beaujolais event starts at 7:00 pm EDT. We’ve invited some friends over to enjoy the wines and are preparing several food items to pair with the wines. The wines are vintages 2009 and 2010.

The first wine, 2010 Rosé d’ Folie, Terres Dorées, Jean-Paul Brun will be served as our guests arrive. The second, 2009 Beaujolais Blanc, Georges Duboeuf, a Chardonnay, will be served with smoked salmon. The next wine, 2009 Beaujolais-Villages, Chateau Luc du Tracot will be paired with grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. The last wine, 2010 Chiroubles, Damien Coquelet is to be matched with barbecued chicken. All wines will be served chilled and we’ll be interested to note how well they match with barbecued foods.

If you happen to have one of these wines available or would like to learn about them, join Twitter tonight between 7:00 pm and 8:30 pm. Follow the hashtag #Beaujolais. See what others have to say about Beaujolais wines.

Beaujolais is a wine region of France located south of Burgundy. Vineyards are noted for the red Gamay grape. Three of the above wines were made from Gamay.

Cheers,

Kathy

We were happy to receive four wines from the Beaujolais region of France to pair with traditional Independence Day foods. Considering the ninety-degree weather, tasty light white and red wines that are nicely chilled seem quite appealing. On June 28^th Discover Beaujolais is organizing a live wine tasting event on Twitter at 7:00 pm EDT. You can follow the discussion by following the hashtag #Beaujolais. A panel, headed by Rodolphe Boulanger, president of The Wine Messenger, will share insights and opinions.

Wanting to brush up on the Beaujolais wine region I reached for the large tome Le Grand Livre Du Vin that Kathy acquired for a few dollars from a used bookstore. The 1970 English edition was in great shape. Many of the color images are printed on a separate paper and affixed to the pages of the book. The book is a nice keepsake for a wine book collection. Searching the index, I find that page 82 starts the section on Beaujolais. Tried to find page 82 and discovered it was missing. In fact pages 77 – 88 were nowhere to be found. Beaujolais is missing! After searching through the rest of the book I gave up ever reading this tome’s section on Beaujolais. Perhaps this is the reason the book only sold for a few dollars.

Luckily we have several backup books when it comes to detailed descriptions of many of the world’s wine regions. The Oxford Companion to Wine edited by Jancis Robinson had five columns spread over three pages devoted to Beaujolais. Had to find my reading glasses to read the small print. It was informative however.

The next task is to develop a menu for a Beaujolais barbeque. Then we’ll be on our way to searching for recipes that uses a wine from Beaujolais as an ingredient.

Cheers,
Terry

On Thursday, July 21, 2011, a charity golf tournament takes place at Rothland Golf Course. The golf course is located in Akron, New York. More information and a registration form can be found at the Heath Trust website.

Those who prefer may choose to enjoy a wine tour to wineries and a steak dinner with golfers in the evening.

Proceeds for the event will benefit the HOSPICE Foundation. Patient and family services at the Center for Hospice & Palliative Care will benefit from the charity event. If you don’t know about hospice or palliative care, they are good things to know about and you may want to help with hospice or palliative care organizations.

Cheers! Kathy

Laurello Vineyards a boutique winery in Geneva, Ohio is helping visitors have a great start to summer. The outdoor patio is open. On Fridays and Saturdays the Laurello grill is open beginning at 5pm. The menu includes two varieties of cheeseburgers and chicken caprese sandwiches. These are served with a side salad.

The summer menu now includes tomato bruschetta and homemade Lucy’s Caponata. Visitors can order Sangria or Vinosa by the pitcher. The ingredients for Vinosa include Riesling, orange juice and slices, ginger ale and ice. It sounds refreshing!

As always there is a special pizza for this weekend, the Margarita. A white wine is a suggested wine pairing with the pizza.

Entertainment begins at 7pm on Friday and Saturdays. For this weekend Friday night’s performance will be by Face Value and Saturday night will be Flashback.

Reminder: Pizza for the Cure is occurring on Thursdays throughout the summer. The winery will offer a small Tuscan pizza with a side salad for $7. All proceeds are to be donated to Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. If you can’t make it to the winery on a Thursday, then consider using the donate button on the home page of the Laurello Vineyards website!

Check out the Wine Trail Traveler article about Laurello Vineyards.

Cheers! Kathy

Wineries are off to a great start for the summer with numerous wine events to satisfy almost anyone. Below are a number of wineries with their events for this weekend. Check them out when you have a moment.

Remember that when tasting wines to drink as much water or more than wine. Consider keeping a bottle or two of water in your car.

When purchasing wine during the summertime, it is especially important to keep the wine cool in the trunk of your car. Putting the wine into a hot car can easily ruin the wine. Ice packs in a cooler can help to prevent the wine from over heating.

Cheers! Kathy

Friday, June 24

Chateau Chantal, Michigan
Event: Tapas Tour
Website Information

Ferrante Winery & Ristorante, Ohio
Entertainment: Trevor Trio
Website Information

Lorimar Winery, California
Event: Friday Night “Happy Hour”
Website Information

Saturday, June 25

Blue Ridge Vineyard, Virginia
Event: Saturday Evening Event-check winery for details
Website Information

Chateau Chantal, Michigan
Event: Tapas Tour
Event: Wine Dinner
Website Information

DelFosse Winery, Virginia
Event: French Crepe Day
Website Information

Ferrante Winery & Ristorante, Ohio
Entertainment: Afternoon-Larry Smith; Evening- Face Value
Website Information

Lorimar Winery, California
Entertainment: Kristine & Friends-Luis Blues and Vocals
Website Information

Three Fox Vineyards, Virginia
Events: Foodie Fight/food and wine trivia
Website Information

Vezer Family Vineyard
Event: Mankas Garden Concert Series/ Special-T
Website Information

Sunday, June 26

Blue Ridge Vineyard, Virginia
Event: Sunday Afternoon Event-check winery for details
Website Information

Chateau Chantal, Michigan
Event: Tapas Tour
Website Information

DelFosse Winery, Virginia
Event: French Crepe Day
Website Information

Ferrante Winery & Ristorante, Ohio
Entertainment: Uncharted Course
Website Information

Three Fox Vineyards, Virginia
Events: Foodie Fight/food and wine trivia
Website Information

Winery at LaGrange, Virginia
Event: Live Music All Summer Long/Russ and Dave
Event: Book Signing with Johanna Devon author of What Goes Around
Website Information

The 2011 North American Wine Bloggers’ Conference takes place July 22-24 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Those who might be interested in attending include wine bloggers both individuals and industry, new media innovators and wine industry people who want to learn about new media talk with loggers.

In addition to the regular conference, the day before there is a pre-conference excursion into wine country. Thursday night is the International Wine Tasting Night.

The Conference begins on Friday July 22. Jancis Robinson will deliver a keynote speech. After the keynote, there will be two breakout sessions and live wine blogging late in the afternoon. In the evening a Virginia Wine Reception takes place at Monticello.

Saturday’s agenda begins at 9:00 am with a session on Virginias wine history, geology and business climate. Local wineries and vineyards will be visited during the day. At 4:00 pm Eric Asimov will provide a keynote speech. The rest of Saturday will be filled with live wine blogging, a pre-dinner reception with Cognac, dinner and an after hours party with wines from Rioja.

Sunday morning will have a Moderated Unconference by Bloggers, Ignite Wine (a series of short 5 minute presentations) and a Wrapup of the 2011 conference with a preview of 2012.

If you are a wine blogger or involved in new media consider attending the Wine Bloggers’ Conference.  More information and to register visit the Wine Bloggers’ Conference website. If you use Twitter, use the hashtag #WBC11

Cheers! Kathy

When we visited several New Jersey wineries last week, we were asked, “Do you know what is happening to the New Jersey wine industry?” While I was aware there was some issue, my attention has been focused on the Maryland legislation that has passed permitting direct shipping from across the country. Yes, the new Maryland direct shipping law has some concerns but it is a major step forward for wine lovers.

Now New Jersey wineries are in a bind with some facing financial ruin if their situation is not corrected soon. An article on philly.com, New Jersey winemakers worried by bottleneck on direct shipping, by Paul Nussbaum goes into quite a bit of detail as to the dilemma.

Nussbaum even quotes the owner of Alba Vineyard & Winery noting that he is unable to get outlet licenses even though he won the New Jersey Governor’s Cup for his Gewürztraminer 2010. Alba is located in a renovated early 1800s barn and has acres of vineyards on the sloping hills behind the winery.

Prior to December 2010, New Jersey had allowed in-state wineries to ship wine directly to consumers. This was determined to be unconstitutional since wineries out-of-state were not allowed to directly ship to consumers in New Jersey. Now the New Jersey legislature is divided on the issue.

In the meantime, the New Jersey wineries and related industries are suffering. With the downturn of the economy why are the legislatures blind to see the benefits of allowing direct wine shipping? We don’t need more wineries facing foreclosure and loss of more jobs. The laws that prevent direct shipping are Prohibition in disguise.

Why would legislators prevent adult citizens from ordering wine, a legal beverage, and conveniently having it shipped to them?

If you are a New Jersey resident, contact your state legislators and let them know how you feel about direct wine shipping.

Cheers! Kathy