Well, we can promise you one thing after tonight…Kosher with a Kick is about to become an annual event. And I think my husband may be converting to Judaism. All it took was learning that Kosher laws hold the grape in the highest esteem because the grape makes wine. And wine is a crucial element to honoring all of life’s sacrifices and blessings. It doesn’t hurt that the Kosher wines that we tasted tonight (which were immediately made non-Kosher by the very act of a gentile opening them…fascinating stuff!) were excellent. By far the most popular of the evening was the Borgo Reale Pinot Noir from Puglia. Yes, a Kosher Italian Pinot Noir. It was a bottle that anyone would be proud to serve, even if they don’t keep Kosher. Best part of the evening for us? Being invited to so many homes for the upcoming Jewish holidays. We’ll bring the wine, if you bring the tradition.

Many thanks to Robin Cohen for asking us to co-host the glorious event, and to The Fireplace’s Jim Solomon and his sous chefs for the delicious food. I couldn’t get pictures of all of it because it was being inhaled so quickly.  But here are a few shots I took of the evening.

Artisanal New England Cheese with Trappist Monk Jam and Fresh Fruit

Sparkling wine from Israel

Robin and TJ get their schtick on

Robin teaches us how to incorporate seasonal and local foods into the traditional holiday traditions

Cool bottle, cooler wine

I shamelessly told this woman in the red the entire saga of TJ's and my courtship. She was very patient.

Pinot Noir and Goat Cheese tarts...don't mind if I do!

Taza Chocolate cake with Whipped Cream and Caramel sauce. I had three pieces.

Until next year, L’Chaim!

Last week TJ and I were filming a spot for Boldfacers, and Lisa Pierpont asked us, “Why do people love wine so much? It’s almost like a cult!” Our response is sort of a blur, but I’m fairly certain we went on and on about making wine memories and experiences, and am certain that TJ said, “wine is sexy.” TJ fully believes that everything about wine is sexy – the taste, the color, the glass, the pour, the swirl…you get the point. When he worked with our architects Oudens/Ello he asked for a sexy retail space, and I believe they achieved it. But nothing ruins the sexiness of wine more than an off bottle. Be it too young, too unbalanced, or too off, a bad bottle of wine is decidedly unsexy.

So let’s talk about unsexy wine, because it’s not to be avoided, and every wine drinker should know what recourse they have if they run into a bottle that makes them unhappy. If you buy a wine and there is nothing structurally wrong with it, but you just don’t like it, then you are probably out the money you spent on it. But the experience doesn’t have to be a total loss.  For instance, at The Urban Grape, we ask that you bring in the name of the bottle you didn’t like (or the wine itself if you want us to try it and give you our thoughts) and the reasons you didn’t like it. We will add these notes to your wine profile – the profile we create the first time you buy wine from us that stores all the bottles you’ve ever purchased, your likes and dislikes, etc. – and we can reference those notes when next helping you to pick a bottle. This way you can be assured that we won’t steer you toward a similar wine in the future.

If the bottle is corked or oxidized, you have more options. Corked wine occurs when the cork itself is contaminated by TCA (Trichloroanisole), a chemical that is produced, in part, by mold in the cork. These wines are just plain unsexy. Musty, dank, smelly…and they have a terrible feel on the palate. Industry sources say that only 5% of wines are corked, but in our experience it is a higher percentage than that. If you buy a wine with a synthetic cork or a screw cap, then the wine cannot be corked. If you encounter a corked wine that you bought at The Urban Grape, bring it back to the store- the bottle and the wine. We credit you and then send it back to the distributor, they credit us and all is right in the world. Any store that won’t take back a corked bottle of wine is not worth your patronage (yeah, we’ll say it!) because it costs them nothing but time and effort to take back a corked bottle.

Oxidized wine is sort of like corked wine but is, in our mind, more of an unsexy shame. Because often these are wines that should not even be on the shelf. Oxidization can happen during the bottling process when too much air enters the bottle. In short, the air oxidizes the tannins which produces hydrogen peroxide (great, the stuff we clean cuts with…how sexy), which further oxidizes the ethanol into acetaldehyde. It’s the acetaldehyde that gives an oxidized wine its off odor and taste (almost vinegar like). A batch of wine that is bottled incorrectly is often, but not always, detected before it is shipped out through taste testing and the like. So if you get an oxidized bottle, chances are good that it was not shipped or stored correctly. Most likely it was exposed to extreme heat during shipping or storage (think canisters at docks, train stations and truck stops), which causes the cork to move out of the bottle, allowing air in. Once the bottle cools back down the cork pushes back in but the damage has been done.

When you see wines on the shelf and think “this price is too good to be true,” that’s because it probably is. It may have been an off vintage, or the wine is not popular and therefore is not selling, or it may be because somewhere along the line the wine was not properly stored and may be oxidized. The retail store has bought that wine off of a “Close out list”, and is now hoping to get lucky with a bottle that is not flawed. If the bottle is flawed, the store is hoping that you either won’t notice or won’t complain. That’s why The Urban Grape does not buy wines from close out lists. Too risky, and our customers are more important to us than the profit to be made.

By the way, oxidization also happens when your open bottles are recorked and left for a few days. That’s why wine almost never tastes as good on the second or third night its open (with a few great exceptions!). So how can we keep our Enomatic wines open for so many days without subjecting them to oxidization? The answer is Argon gas. Argon is heavier than Oxygen, so when we pipe it into the bottles the Argon sinks below the Oxygen and pushes it out of the bottle. Thus preserving the wine beneath!

Beyond the fourth grade Science lesson, what is our point? Unsexy wine is never fun. The Urban Grape promises to help you learn from it or to credit you, and any shop that won’t do the same is decidedly unsexy too.

TJ and I have asked each of our staff members to write about some of their favorite wines on the wall. Today we feature Scott Brown’s choices. As our inventory guru and general wizard of making all things run smoothly at The Urban Grape, you will often find Scott physically perched in front of the 4R section (aka, the computer). But philosophically, Scott is a heavy bodied Red man, and as such is most comfortable amongst the 7 to 10 R’s. (Sorry for no photos of the labels. I will add them as soon as WordPress decides to cooperate!)

Smooth and Jammy, or Chewy and Spicy? This is my dilemma when deciding on which of my two favorite (at the moment) red wines I want to uncork. I also don’t have to worry about food choices because these two wines can be thoroughly enjoyed and savored all by themselves, although both will enhance burgers, pizza, or anything cooked on the grill.

I found both of these selections while on a Sonoma tasting vacation with my family last April. There were five of us on the trip and each day I would select six bottles from our tastings to be opened that evening. Once home, while my family unwound with G&T’s on our deck overlooking the Russian River, I’d pop the first wine bottle – and somehow there were only ever five bottles available for dinner and beyond.

If you like smooth and jammy, there’s nothing as pleasing as Cline Vineyards “Cashemere.”

The name along congers up images of comfort, elegance, and the finest quality. The wine is a “Rhone Ranger,” that is, Rhone grapes grown in California and then blended. Cashmere is a classic Rhone blend of Syrah, Grenach, and Mourvedre offering raspberry, cherry and black pepper in it’s flavor profile. Crack a bottle of Cashmere, put your feet up, and feel the pressures of the day slide to the back burner. Thankfully, TJ purchased this wine for the store, so I can drift back to Sonoma in April whenever I want. It’s on our wine wall as a 7R and sells for $16.

If, on the other hand, you prefer your reds chewy and spicy, then Seghesio Vineyards Red Zinfandel is spot on.

It’s made from voluptuous Dry Creek Valley fruit from vineyards first planted in 1895. Once thought to be unsuitable for planting, Dry Creek’s climate puts great stress on the vines resulting in smaller qualities of richer, plumper fruit. This 4th generation family vineyard produces a chewy, rich, spicy red Zin, perfect for your Labor Day picnics and cookouts. We tried it in April along with some of the vineyard’s homemade spicy sausage. To die for… It’s on our wine wall as a 10R – yes, a 1o R! – and sells for $27.

Like the way Scott thinks? You can visit him at the store M-F, 9 to 5:30, and ask him to walk you through our Big Boy Red section.

As owners of a newly opened wine store, TJ and I were not really sure what expectations to have for our first Tax Free Weekend. We brought most of our staff in to work with the understanding that they might all get cut. After all, it was a gorgeous weekend. Would the Tax Free holiday be enough to keep the crowds in town?

Well, let me tell you…yes. We were slammed from 9:31 on Saturday morning to 6:14 on Sunday night. In all, we estimate that over 700 people came through The Urban Grape. And 75% of them were new customers! And look at this picture and tell me if you see what I see…

I mean, can anyone pull off a purple plaid shirt as well as my husband? Okay, now back to the point – take a look at this picture, and look at how YOUNG our customers were this weekend!

You can see it here as well…young, diverse, fun, hip, interested and interesting, excited about wine, excited to LEARN about wine, excited to BUY wine…lots and lots of it, I might add.

And across the board they were excited to be experiencing wine that they might not otherwise have had a chance to try. Because we high rolled it this weekend…

So thank you Governor Patrick for our Tax Free weekend. And thank you to our staff for their unbelievably hard work – you guys never stopped moving, selling and smiling. It was inspiring to see. Let’s all raise a glass to the new generation of wine drinkers. You made your presence heard this weekend and we can’t wait to have you back to The Urban Grape for more wine, conversation and fun.

Beer Guy Noah is at it again.  Today, an ode to Pretty Things…

Pretty things come in all shapes and sizes. Some come wrapped in shiny paper, some in fancy bows, but the prettiest of things comes from within a bottle. What, you ask? Well I’ll tell you this: you can find it on our beer shelf, in five different styles in fact, each one as equally pretty as the other. You can find it light and summery, or dark and rustic, or big and malty, or hiding behind a Field mouse or a baby tree. And the best part is, these particular pretty things come with the low and pretty price of six or eight dollars—a very affordable fee for something so pretty.

If you haven’t caught on by now, I’ll go ahead and spit it out straightforwardly for you. The items I’ve been speaking so fondly of come from not a brewery, but a very special, Massachusetts based beer and ale project known as Pretty Things.  They’re a super cool company with super cool products. As I mentioned before, we currently carry five:

Jack D’Or- A delicious, refreshing table beer—the central brew of the bunch—an Americanized Belgian saison style ale that smells of zesty lemon peel and barnyard funk. It’s citrusy and peppery and clean with a dry, crisp finish—subtle complexity in a pretty bottle.

American Darling- A terrifically big lager with yeasty floral notes, a tart lemony twang and a perfect balance of mellow hops. It’s SUPER refreshing and unusually complex for the style. Oh and by the way, its ABV is 7%, but you’d never know. So if you’re dying for the perfect sit-out-on-the-deck-after-mowing-the-lawn summer beer for these oh-so-hot and humid days, you’ve found your fix.

Field Mouse’s Farewell- Sweet. Biscuity. Tart. A yummy farmhouse ale, slightly bitter, with a smooth,velvety viscosity. On the palate it starts out sweet and malty, but then the field mouse morphs revealing a mildly hoppy bitter side. The finish is almost questionably clean. Mmmm.

Baby Tree- A big 9% ABV Belgian style quadruple ale brewed with dried plums. I was a bit weary at first when I lay eyes on this colorful bottle. Not because of the bizarre label which revealed a tree full of babies, but because I had given up on belgian style quadruples after exposure to Ommegang’s Three Philosophers. Nothing seemed to stand up to it. I can now say that my fridge is stocked with both ales, Three Philosophers and Baby Tree, side by side, they stand together. Like a quadruple ale should, Baby Tree delivers big on the fruitiness. A rich plum flavor seduces the palate and then gives way to a bitterness commonplace is Belgian quadruples. Though you can feel the high alcohol linger a little, it’s surprisingly simple to guzzle down, or sip. And the best part is you don’t need much more than a 22oz bottle to get a nice, little buzz.

Saint Botolph’s Town- A deep, gorgeous mahogany colored ale with hints of nuts, chocolate, and subtle dark fruit. The ale is smooth and rich and the the roasted malt lingers pleasantly on the palate well after the sip is taken. How good does that sound? Also, at 5.9% ABV it almost goes down too easy.

So if one–or all five–of these delectable, rustic ales sounds alluring to you, then come on down to The Urban Grape and pluck one off the shelf…and maybe taste a little wine while you’re at it.

Lastly, a special thanks to the Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project for the five great treats above and for allowing us to be in the business of pretty things. We look forward to the upcoming seasonal brews.

Like so many people, I am finding myself caught between the seasons.  I am back on the Vineyard and in some ways it feels like summer has just started.  The corn is in, my mother’s sun gold tomatoes are literally bursting on the vine, the peaches are so good we are eating dozens a day, the ocean water is warm enough for a swim, and the kids – mine, and my nephews and niece – have stopped wearing outfits…it’s just a diaper for the baby and boxers for the boys, a long t-shirt for my niece. An added bonus, both of my brothers are finally on island which means the meals have stepped up a notch…and so has the drinking.

On the other hand, we are all ready to be back in Boston with TJ. And, new this year, we all want to be back with The Urban Grape. We all seem to be looking forward to creating a new routine, a new norm. Noah misses his dad and worries who is stocking the shelves at the store. The baby is positive that any father is his father. That is, until, he gets his own father on the phone and starts rambling off all his new words – “hat, bubble, toes, bye bye dadda, love you dadda,” and his newest, “miss you dadda.”  I feel torn between two worlds, chasing the boys on the beach and checking Twitter in the same breath. 

Well, this weekend, with the arrival of my cousin and her husband and two kids, the scales tipped in favor of summer…seven kids squeezing every last second of sunshine out of a day make it impossible not to put down your phone, ignore the blog and give in. There were beach sojourns, kayak adventures, clamming and crabbing excursions, a lighthouse tour, a breakfast trip for pancakes, an after dinner trip to town for ice cream, hours spent climbing up trees, and hours spent sliding down Slip ‘n’ Slides (naked, I might add). My mother made a tenderloin that could have fed 20 and a tomato tart that was devoured. My brother braised a pork butt and made tacos with homemade guac and roasted tomatillo salsa. And the wine cellar got raided. A partial list includes:

• Many bottles of Bastianich Vespa
• Newton Chardonnay
• Blange
• Sinfo Rose
• Conn Creek ’97 Cabernet
• DrinkWater Peschon
• Marquis Phillips Shiraz #9
• Elyse Cabernet
• Fanti Brunello
• Pichon Longueville Bordeaux
• and sadly, a few others that were enjoyed but forgotten…

So here’s to summer. Routines can start soon enough, and the wine store will be there waiting for us when we return home to Boston. As summer starts its slow wind toward fall, I hope you are enjoying good wine and family as much as we are!

It’s August, everyone…which means we all have a few weddings on the calendar. Guest blogger Kate, a staff member at The Urban Grape, shares a fun story about helping a customer pick out the perfect wedding gift!

What’s a better gift to give than wine?  In the last few weeks, I’ve helped Urban Grape customers buy wine for a 65th wedding anniversary, a mother’s 70th birthday, and for a friend to help celebrate her child’s graduation from college (no more college tuition!)  But, I had an absolute blast Monday night helping a girl pick out a wedding sampler for her friend who is about to get hitched. 

If you aren’t already aware, The Urban Grape offers registry services for brides and grooms or can help friends put together a wine selection for a creative present – at any budget! My customer had the clever idea of finding wines that could be opened for specific milestones the couple would celebrate:  first anniversary, Valentine’s Day, first baby, first Christmas together, and first fight (ha!) as a married couple.   Like every other recessionista watching her purse strings, she came up with an awesome and affordable selection of four wines the newlyweds will love: 

the $16 Paco and Lola Albarino, an eponymous wine named after the married winemakers for our couple’s first anniversary;

the $14 Grinalda Vinho Verde, the label of which is decorated with cupids, for their first Valentine’s Day;

the $13 Albet i Noya Tempranillo, adorably featuring two tiny footprints on the label, to celebrate the arrival of their first baby;

and the $11 Arrogant Frog Red for the couple’s first fight (no explanation necessary). 

So, at only $54, we came up with four bottles of wine that will remind the happy couple of their clever friend, every time they pop another cork.

This experience was one of the best that I’ve had thus far at The Urban Grape, and I can’t wait to help more of our customers pick out creative gifts for their friends! 

Yesterday was my birthday, a day that I usually spend laying on the beach in Martha’s Vineyard. I knew that wasn’t going to happen this year, but I also wanted to make a point of taking the day off and trying to relax and spend a little time with the fam. After a much needed massage and a little chill time at home, we spent the afternoon at the wading pool and playground on the Esplanade. While the boys ate dinner, Hadley and I popped open 1999 Bollinger La Grande Annee Champagne, and munched on some Whipped Feta from Sofra. As soon as I saw Hadley roasting a red jalapeno over an open flame, I knew we would be in for a good foodie night!

My original pick for my birthday bottle was the Dal Forno Valpolicella Superiore. When I popped it, it was good, but not great. I’m not sure if it just wasn’t ready or was maybe a little off, but it didn’t taste fully formed. So into the wine closet I went, and decided on the 2005 Renato Ratti Barolo Marcenasco. Now this is a killer wine at a completely affordable price (around $60 if you can find it). The beginning of the sip is round with great structure and amazing fruit and halfway through, bam, you know you are drinking a Barolo.

We also opened up some organic Olive Oil from Chateau D’Estoublon that our staffer Jon brought back from a recent trip to France.

We sell a Chateau D’Estoublon red at the store that is quite tasty and very affordable, but what they are really known for is their olive oil. We picked the olive oil that was said to be slightly nutty and that would pair well with tomatoes for our caprese salad.

Hads put the caprese over some Siena Farms arugula she had picked up at the Copley Farmers market that afternoon. Honestly, I have never had such good arugula. It was so fresh and peppery that Hads put mint over the top of the salad instead of the usual basil. Good call.

We’d been thinking about making Chef Robin White’s Sirloins with Salsa Verde, but we had something similar at The Capital Grille last month and then again on July 4th, so after some consulting with her brother, Hads marinated a couple of skirt steaks for a day and then put a ridiculously good chimichurri sauce over the top. I grilled these steaks for two and a half minutes on one side and a minute and a half on the other over really high heat with the lid down. They came out perfectly – juicy and medium rare.

We threw some fresh Siena Farms corn into boiling water for a few minutes and dinner was served.

We finished the night with a chocolate pecan pie from The Dutch House (also at the Copley Farmers Market) and a little Balvenie Double Wood 12 year Scotch. The perfect evening on the perfect day.

I want to thank everyone that took time out to wish me a happy birthday yesterday. It’s like we’ve created this Urban Grape family, and after helping you pick wine out for so many of your special occasions, it was nice to have you all be a part of mine.

So I’ve got to ask – do you pick out a special bottle of wine for your birthday? And if so, what have you chosen in years past?