Sonor Wines America - 2017 Pinot Noir

 Back when I was buying wine professionally, we got a visit from the sales rep for Sonor Wines America. He was offering a small line of wines that had labels featuring artists and their music. It's not uncommon to see artists, actors, or other Hollywood-types dipping into the wine business, and with custom crush and other craft services readily available, it's easy to buy up some grape lots and release under your own name or label...if you have the money, that is. Celebrity labels are hit-or-miss, but the price was right so we picked up a few cases. 

Sonor has a wide variety of wines at a low price point, but the kicker is, and bear with me - the wines were "imbued" with music. Austrian wine aficionado Markus Bachmann figured that by submerging speakers into the wine, and playing various musical tracks, it would somehow affect the quality of the wine or create a product enhanced with additional properties. Obviously this is quite hokey, but wine is wine, so I figured I'd write about it. I got this for $4.99 on clearance at Irving Wines & Spirits, and for five bucks, it's hard to go wrong. 

This wine features music by Jesse Cook, a Canadian guitarist. The track, "Mario Takes a Walk", is a blend of Spanish-sounding guitar, nice peppy beat, with some wood blocks and light percussion. Cool. 

So "sonic" additives aside, the wine: it's a 2017 pinot noir from Austria. Nice to see a central European red. I'm not getting much aroma from the glass, but as it sits out and I volatize a bit, there's a touch of berry. Taste-wise, it's a bit sharp, a little metallic, and off-dry. There's a good dose of raspberry and plum juice; it could definitely use a few more years in a barrel to smooth out some of those flavors. The wine isn't bad - certainly not refined or perfected - but it's a fun experiment and priced appropriately and it's fun to listen to the music. It had an original price of $9.99, which is fine, marked down to $4.99 which is much more of a value. I think this would go great with pizza, actually.  

Schilling Beer Co. - "Hemel" table saison

Here's a snapshot of a single beer I picked up at Each Peach Market in Mt. Pleasant, DC. It's a 4.90% ABV "table saison" from Schilling Beer Co. in Littleton, NH. Located in a Revolutionary War-era gristmill on the banks of the Ammonoosuc River, Schilling's focus is European-style beers: lagers, saisons, and foeder-aged brews. It looks like the do some spontaneously-fermented beers (that is, beers fermented with wild yeast and whatever's in the air. All those microbes add distinct character to the beer!)

The pour is a pale straw color, and generates a lacy off-white foam. There's some green apple, Belgian spice, and a bit of earth on the nose. The aroma isn't super strong. 

In a blind taste test, I'd think this was made with white grape must. It's floral and has an unoaked Chardonnay-like quality that I haven't experienced too much before. It's quite crisp, a little hazy, and has some good baking spice notes. It has a lip-smacking finish and is light enough to have on a hot day with lunch. In fact, that's exactly what this style was intended for!  I got this for $4.99 for a single 16oz pint, so decent but not a crazy bargain.  

Other Half Brewing - "4th Anniversary is A Zombie" quad-hopped triple IPA

Other Half, based in Brooklyn with an outpost in DC, has been pumping out some pretty solid hazy IPAs lately. It seems every few weeks, I'm seeing fresh drops of high-powered beers with weird names and cool labels. They usually come in 4-packs of 16oz cans. Here's one, that just showed up to Irving Wines and Spirits in Mt. Pleasant, and I had to try. 

It's a 10.00% ABV quadruple-hopped triple IPA called "4th Anniversary is a Zombie". Now, yeah, I get it. "Quadruple dry-hopped Triple India Pale Ale." It's a lot. All these suffixes and prefixes sometimes seem a bit too much. In fact, some of the guys I used to work with at the wine & spirits store and I used to joke about the increase in such beers...there's always a "bourbon barrel aged cinnamon mocha lactose pastry stout" or "triple dry hopped oak-aged cold India pale lager" or some other wild combination. It became a trope in the industry.

Pours orange juice-like into the glass. Leaves a sticky foam on the glass. It's not a light nose, nothing significant. It's made with Citra, Galaxy, Enigma, El Dorado, Mosaic, and Citra Cryo hops, so lots of stuff in here.

It's somewhat...flat. It's soft, juicy, with a decent resinous quality, owing to the strong showing of hops. The flavor and presentation is mild, however, and there's nothing aggressive about this beer. This tracks, I think, with Other Half's other offerings...strong,. hop-heavy beers toned down in terms of texture. It's delicious, don't get me wrong, with a short finish and refreshing "juice" at the end. And, like a lot of their stuff, doesn't taste like 10.00% ABV. 

I enjoyed trying it, although it was $6.75 for a single 16oz can...so $27 for a 4pk, therefore expensive. But nice if you like juicy, soft, but boozy IPAs.

Hill Staff Homebrew Contest (District Fray)

Here's my latest article for District Fray Magazine, in which I wrote about homebrewing and the Hill Staff Homebrew Contest. This one was interesting to write as I wasn't actually able to try the beer, nor was I invited to the event. 

https://districtfray.com/articles/into-the-brewhouse-how-to-start-homebrewing/

I actually was going to do a piece on homebrewing before the pandemic; there was some guy I met who was a master homebrewer and made some cool stuff. I've reviewed homebrewed beer four times on the blog so far:

• Ministry of Beer - Beer of Socialist Labor with Oak-Leaf Clusters
• Field Trip: Breakaway Brew Haus [Bolton, Connecticut]
• Beer Flash: Chris' "Off The Topper" IPA
• Beer Flash - Christine's 2014-vintage "Oktoberfest" ale

I'm not interested in getting into homebrewing, for a variety of reasons, but it's super neat. Some of the folks I've met have really gone all out with lots of complex machinery, turning their garage into a brewhouse (which is how Breakaway Brew Haus started.) 

Aslin Beer Company - "That Shiz Slaps" dopplebock

 I am several years behind the times, I'm told, but I have now learned what "that slaps" means — just in time to grab this seasonal from Aslin Beer Co.

It's called "That Shiz Slaps" and is a 9.50% ABV dopplebock. Bock beers, originally a German style, are a classification of strong beers that are typically dark and malty. Doppelbock is "double bock" and doubles down on the original taste and flavor of bock beers. Other variants, like weizenbock, hellesbock, or eisbock, are also available. In the US market, you most commonly see bock and doppelbocks in the fall or winter.

Here's Aslin's take on it. True to style, it's malty, definitely sweet, with some caramel notes and a bit of "chewy malts" alongside an interesting grainy wheat texture. It's sweeter than I would like, but still a nice American interpretation of the style, which you often seen in 500mL imported bottles. Also, damn, it does not taste like 9.50% ABV, that's for sure. 

It's $14.99 for a 4-pack of 16oz tallboys, so not bad. This beer does, in fact, slap. 

Bell's Brewery - 2018 "Third Coast" barleywine

Avid readers will recall my various barleywine reviews over the years: offerings from Uinta, Southern Tier, numerous Stone variants. of course Sierra Nevada, and even local Atlas Brewing Co. have all been investigated. For those unfamiliar, barleywine (also spelled 'barley wine') is a type of strong ale originating in England that generally weighs in at 8% to 12% ABV. Barleywine is called such as it has close to the ABV of wine yet is made with grains like barley. There are two main kinds of barleywine: American and English. American barleywines are hoppier, more bitter, and lighter. English style is sweeter and darker. Both, I find, are rather delicious and generally have higher alcohol content than ordinary beers.

I want to say that the style is going strong, but it isn't. I've been seeing fewer and fewer barleywines on the market today, in part due to the death of the 22oz bottle format. There are a few, to be sure, but not like their used to be. So of course whenever I see one, I'm game to try. Today's is one of the only barleywines I've ever seen sold in 12oz six-packs; and is a 10.20% ABV "old ale" made by Comstock, MI-based Bell's Brewery. This one was made in 2018, and as you may recall, barleywine ages well, so now's a good time to see how it's progressing. 

It pours slowly, and generates a generous, uniquely-barleywine aroma...sort of a mix of booze, crackers, and caramel. It's medium-full bodied, with nice oak, and some apricot. The bitterness has melted away somewhat, quickly actually for a barleywine (in my experience, it usually takes 5+ years for the character to dissolve into a more malty, murky state.) 

Lovely and a good example of a barleywine that's prime for drinking. I constantly make the mistake of letting this age too long, so I think now's the time to finish this. Apropos of nothing - Each Peach Market in Mt. Pleasant has started carrying this, and I was able to snag a 2020 variant there as well. 

Orin Swift Cellars - 2020 "Palermo" Cabernet Sauvignon

A little Christmas Eve tradition I have for myself is to make a fancy meal, drink high-quality wines, and watch the most non-Christmas movie of all, The Hunt for Red October. So I grabbed myself a porterhouse, made some mashed potatoes, and found a California cabernet to pair. 

It's a 2020 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from famed producer Dave Phinney, making wines under the Orin Swift label. We've carried Orin Swift stuff at D'Vines for a while, easily recognizable by their funky labels. This 15.30% ABV wine is aged for 14 months in French Oak barrels, 30% being new oak (not second fill, etc.) 

Also, the bottles are very heavy and thick...initially, judging by the weight, I thought it was a liter bottle. Nope, it's just a big, chonky 750mL. 

I left it out to decant for a few hours in my Reidel magnum decanter, giving it a swish and swirl every 30 minutes or so. Initial aroma is of tobacco, leather, and some earth. Not much fruit or spice. 

On the tongue, it's not as big and burly as I'd expect a Napa cab to be, but that's fine by me. California cabernets have a reputation for being powerhouse reds; while they can be, they can also present like the Palermo: silky, delicious, dark and smooth with some good structure and complexity. There's some dark fruit notes in there, like blueberry with some chocolate. It's off-dry, which I find fits nicely with the meal. There's very little alcohol flavors to speak of, and the moderate dryness gives it a nice feeling as the wine is sipped. I kept some in the decanter and came back to it the following day; the flavors didn't change too much, and perhaps the wine was a touch softer than directly out of the bottle. 

I picked this up at Irving Wines & Spirits in Mt. Pleasant, DC, for $54.99, and while it's beyond what I'd suggest most people spend on a bottle, it's a a holiday treat for me.