| APRIL 2024 NEWS Upcoming Tasting Events – May 8th & 9th Upcoming Classes – May 15th & 23rd New Website Features: Custom Cases & Online Event Signup Featured Wines Questions? 504-227-3888 nolawinemerchant@gmail.com TASTING EVENTS Our tasting events are informal and are not seated. Reserve your spot and join us during the appointed times up to 30 minutes before the event ends, and you will be able to taste through the full lineup. Cheese & charcuterie will be offered to pair to the wines. Call 504-227-3888, sign up online, or stop by the store to reserve your spot! Domestic Pinot Noir Values ($30 and under) Wednesday, May 8th, 4:30-6:30pm $32 per person – 20 spots available! Yes, our focus is still Burgundy but we enjoy Pinot Noir from all over the world, and we have found a delicious and diverse array of wines at very good prices that we want to share with you. You already know some of these, but we also have a number of new releases, plus some with good bottle age. Half are from California, half are from the Pacific Northwest, including a rare Pinot Noir from Washington State.  These are the wines we’ll be opening for the tasting:Babs, Santa Barbara 2020 Copain ‘Les Voisins’, Anderson Valley 2018 Siduri, Anderson Valley 2017 Siduri Parsons’ Vineyard, Russian River Valley 2014 Lioco, Mendocino County 2022 Substance, Columbia Valley 2021 Grower’s Guild, Oregon 2022 Benton Lane, Willamette Valley 2022 Grochau Cellars ‘Commuter Cuvée’, Willamette Valley 2022 Brooks, Eola-Amity Hills 2021 Champagne Mandois – Free! Thursday, May 9th, 4:30-6:30pm We are thrilled to introduce these wines with a tasting led by Champagne Mandois’ Cellar Master, Maximilien DeBilly! We can not recall an opportunity as unique as this one and eagerly look forward to sharing these champagnes with you. The family has had vineyards near Epernay since 1735 but this is their first foray into the United States. They farm 35 hectares, enough to provide about 70% of their production. With a focus on freshness and purity of fruit with great length on the palate, these are excellent wines for sheer drinking pleasure, and they also pair wonderfully with food. We will feature four wines: two non-vintage blends, Brut Origine and Brut Rosé Grand Reserve plus two vintage wines! Blanc de Blancs 1er Cru 2017 and Blanc de Noirs 2015. Come taste these exciting new arrivals and learn about them from the man who makes them! WINE CLASSES Our wine classes are seated events, and limited to 10 people per class. Please arrive at the shop by 6 in order to allow us time to fully explore the wines. Appropriate pairings of cheese and charcuterie will be offered as well. Call 504-227-3888, sign up online, or stop by the store to reserve your spot! Wine Class: Big Reds from Stellenbosch with Suzaan Laing Wednesday, May 15th, 6:00 – 7:15pm $60 per person, only 10 spots available! We are lucky to count Suzaan Laing as a now passionate New Orleanian despite her roots in South Africa. Also based in New Orleans, her import company, South to South, represents only South African wines that she personally selects. We have been supporters from day one and are thrilled to have her lead a class focusing on the exciting region of Stellenbosch. The region is known for its ripe, rich, full red wines (think Napa and Sonoma but with loads of minerality and more old-world sensibility). Come get a master class from the woman importing the wines! Jardin (Jordan Estate) Black Magic Merlot 2020 Rainbow’s End Merlot 2020 Rainbow’s End Cabernet Franc 2020 L’Avenir Single Block Pinotage 2020 Hartenberg The Stork Shiraz 2019 Le Riche Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2020 Hartenberg The Mackenzie 2017 (Bordeaux Blend) Kaapzicht Steytler Pentagon 2020 (Bordeaux Bland) Wine Class: Pernand-Vergelesses Blanc Thursday, May 23rd, 6:00 – 7:15/30pm $75 per person, only 10 spots available! If you had any doubts about our focus on, and allegiance to, Burgundy, this class will completely dispel them. Who else could possibly host a Pernand-Vergelesses class from wines already in stock? We have such a strong selection of whites from the village we didn’t even consider any red wines. This often overlooked appellation is tucked ‘behind’ the Hill of Corton and has varied soils and expositions leading to quite an array of styles. We will taste ten whites from four different vintages and five producers, including a 1er Cru. As you would imagine, quantities are limited but we have set wine aside to ensure that a handful of bottles of each wine will be available for purchase that night. These are the wines we’ll be opening for the tasting: Jean-Jacques Girard ‘Belles Filles’ 2021 Lou Dumont ‘Belles Filles’ 2022 Etienne Delarche ‘Belles Filles’ 2022 Etienne Delarche ‘Belles Filles’ 2020 Etienne Delarche ‘ Combottes’ 2022 Rollin 2019 Rollin ‘Les Cloux’ 2020 Folin-Arbelet 2021 Folin-Arbelet 2020 Etienne Delarche 1er Cru Sous Fretille 2022 New Arrivals & Limited Allocations  Domaine des Garriguettes L’Amista Côtes-du-Rhône Villages 2021 From the village of Châteauneuf-du-Gadagne (no, we hadn’t heard of it either), about 9km east of Avignon. This is 100% Grenache from a vineyard that was planted in 1954! It is a biodynamic wine (Demeter certified) and feels and tastes like Gigondas and Châteauneuf-du-Pape had a baby. Only 50 cases for the country, we got three of them! |
Two New Wallet-Friendly Wines We want to share, as much as we can, two fun wines that we recently acquired for fantastic prices! One of the reasons we get access to such good wines at terrific prices is that our distributors know we don’t advertise or list pricing online, so we will leave this a bit vague… We have a Pinot Blanc (Weissburguner) from Germany that is loaded with minerality for under $15 and a Grignolino for around $15 which will be perfect for warm weather drinking! Luigi ‘Gino’ Veronelli, a famous Italian wine and food writer called Grignolino, “the reddest of white wines and the whitest of red wines.”Come get some before they’re all gone! Website Upgrade in Progress You may have noticed earlier in the newsletter, we have an online event signup for all of our upcoming tastings and classes! Simply fill out the form, and a member of our team will contact you for payment to confirm your reservation. You can, of course, still call or visit the store to reserve your spot, but we’re pleased to introduce this additional option. We have also added an online form for wine inquiries and custom cases! Use this form to inquire about specific wines, or to put together custom cases for pickup. Many of our customers enjoy letting us fill a box for them and this makes communicating the details outside business hours a little bit easier. We are always happy to take your calls and even happier to see you in person, so doing it all the old fashioned way is fine with us, too! |
