Hello Everyone,

It came to our attention a few hours ago that the type of promotion Groupon ran this morning in The Urban Grape’s name is prohibited under Massachusetts law. The second we found out (I kid you not, I was standing in a playground in Jamaica Plain), we asked Groupon to pull the deal, and they immediately complied.  While I wish Groupon had known about this before they ran the deal, I must say that they are working hard to make this situation right for all of you.  For that we are quite thankful.

Here’s why we thought it was okay to have Groupon offer a discounted coupon to The Urban Grape:
1) Groupon ran a similar deal with another area store last year to great success.  
2) Groupon’s initial understanding of the law (and ours too) was that while it is illegal to sell alcohol at retail for less than we buy it, The Urban Grape would not be doing that.  We would be honoring discounted gift certificates. For example, you would still be buying $35 of alcohol, but would be using a gift certificate you had bought for less than that amount. So while we were within the law on that front, we apparently ran afoul of a lesser known statute that prohibits alcohol promotions.
3) Groupon has run these promotions in pretty much every state in the US with no issue.

So where do we go from here?  Groupon is in the process of refunding all of your credit cards. We are working with Groupon to see what else they can offer our customers to make up for the confusion. And we, frankly, are beyond bummed.  We were looking forward to working with old and new customers alike, having new people experience the store, and growing The Urban Grape community.  This just feels like one of those situations where the law has not caught up to the age of social media.

We believe in Groupon and believe that deals like this should be allowed in our state.  They are a win/win (and a wine/wine) for everyone.  We have contacted the ABCC to better understand the restrictions of the law and hope to find a way to work with Groupon to offer you a similar experience in the future…legally.  In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns, please contact me directly – Hadley at TheUrbanGrape dot com.

If this is your first time hearing about The Urban Grape, please stop by. Take a moment to read our blog and learn about us. We are a husband and wife team who are following our dreams of opening a wine store. And it’s a really, really good wine store. One that we would be very honored for you to visit.

Sincerely,

TJ and Hadley Douglas
The Urban Grape

Just outside of Boston you’ll find a school that pays homage to one man’s passion – wine. Boston Wine School, the brainchild of Jonathon Alsop, is located in Allston and has been teaching wine lovers of all levels about wines for many years now.

Jonathon’s new book, Wine Lover’s Devotional, is a year-long collection of insight and eclectica for wine lovers. Each day of the week is given a wine-themed category: Monday: The Language of Wine; Tuesday: Wine Grapes; Wednesday: Wine & Food; Thursday: Putting Wine in its Place (Wine Geography); Friday: People Make Wine, Wine Makes People; and Saturday + Sunday: Weekend Wine Adventure. Wine Lover’s Devotional uses hundreds of years of tradition, tasting notes, recipes, colorful trivia, and intriguing histories to inspire the oenophile in all of us.

We are thrilled to have Jonathon at The Urban Grape on Monday, September 27 from 6-8 pm to read from his book, taste wine with our customers and sign books. Below, you will find an excerpt from Wine Lover’s Devotional.

Pinot to the People – Day 2

European wine grapes of the species vitis vinifera are all genetically related, and one of the greatest families is the Pinot clan: Pinot Blanc, the white grape; Pinot Noir, the black grape; and Pinot Grigio, a version that’s sometimes striped and mottled, neither white nor black but in between – the color grey.  Grigio is Italian for grey, and in France the grape is called Pinot Gris, which also means grey.

Pinot Blanc is Pinot Bianco in Italy and Spain, and like you’d expect, it’s the lightest expression of Pinot in both color and flavor.  The skins of the grapes can be extremely thin – almost transparent – so that what you see is really the white meat of the grape underneath.  As a wine, Pinot Blanc is generally juicy and simple, although there are big, ripe, oaky California versions that are easy to confuse with California Chardonnay.

Pinot Grigio is synonymous with Italian white wine, and it’s grown all up and down the peninsula.  The styles are very different from the Alpine north to the hot sunny south, but Pinot Grigio’s core is full-bodied fruit.  When Pinot Grigio goes mainstream, it represents the most dependably tasty choice for crisp dry white wine.

Pinot Noir is not exactly black in color as the name would suggest, but a color we call Burgundy, after the place in France where the most famous and sought-after Pinot Noir is grown.  Hollywood gave Pinot Noir a big boost in 2003 with Sideways, even though the US market share isn’t even 5%.  Pinot Noir is a light red grape that typically produces light red wines that don’t necessarily hit you over the head with their obvious deliciousness.  You have to be a fan of the finesse game.

BARGAIN HUNTERS: Pinot Noir is popular, Pinot Grigio is everywhere, and Pinot Blanc is ignored, so that’s where you’re going to find value in the Pinot family.  From the French side of the Rhine, Hugel, Willm, and Trimbach are deliciously under $20.  Ditto for Tieffenbrunner (northern Italy) and California’s Castoro Cellars.  Valley of the Moon is just a little more than $10.

PINOT PARTY: Good wine themes make parties work.  The next time you have people over, tell everybody to bring one bottle of under-$20 Pinot Whatever.  Line them up lightest to darkest and stage your own comparative taste-off.

A Place for Every Wine – Days 6+7

Even if you’re just starting to fall in love with wine and only have a few bottles on hand at a time, it’s still nice to have a special place to keep them.  On one level, if your wine space is organized then your wine life is organized and presumably well-focused, which is a good thing for learning about wine and enjoying it.  On another level, wine actually benefits from short-term storage in the cool dark.  Even a couple of days under the sink helps a wine settle down and knit together and form a more cohesive pleasing drink.

Unless we are talking about long-term multi-year wine storage, my attitude toward temperature and humidity at home is very casual.  Most of the time, the wine you store is in your possession only briefly before you drink it.  You could store it on its head or inside out for that matter and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.  Just keep it off the radiators and out of the freezer.  Technically, most wine isn’t in our hands long enough to help or hurt.  If it’s cool and dark, that’s normally good enough for me.

WINE REFRIGERATORS  They’re fun, they’re a sign that you’re serious, and most of them fit in a closet or under a counter, which is what you want in home storage.

UNDER THE STAIRS  If you have a home or apartment with one of those funky, slightly hard-to-use closets tucked up under the stairs, think about reclaiming it for wine storage.

MOTHER EARTH  The greenest and least expensive way to store wine is to utilize the earth’s comparatively chilly crust to cool your collection – if you have a basement or crawlspace, look for a corner with as many earthen walls as possible.  Stack you wine on the floor, tucked back against the cool wall, with the bottles in contact with each other.  This way, you get conductive cooling off the earth, and your wine becomes the temperature of the floor and the wall, almost regardless of the outside air temperature.

CARPENTRY  When you visit vineyards and wineries, you see that they store their wines not in ornate cabinetry, but in small piles: a half-dozen bottles on top of each other inside an open-backed wood box, then another, and one on top till you make a square.

CHEST OF WINE  Swing by your local second-hand store, buy a small front-opening chest and knock out the back.  If you push this up against a cool basement wall and load it with wine, you’ll have a very stable cool environment.

55 DEGREES  Perfect storage temperature is not a rule, it’s a target.  If it’s dark and undisturbed under a kitchen counter in the corner by some cool exterior wall, then that’s perfect whether it’s 55 degrees or 65 degrees.  Buy a small digital thermometer for your wine space to show you mean business, even though normally there’s very little you can do about it.

I’m not exactly sure why the cabbie felt the need to turn on his heat yesterday. After all, the weather in Boston was a stifling 85 degrees with about 85% humidity.

I’m not sure why I chose to wear stretch wool crepe pants, a silk shirt and purple Frye boots in this weather, except that it looked pretty cute. I mean, isn’t it almost October?

All I know is that when my cab pulled up outside of The Urban Grape last night I was soaked, head to toe, in sweat. Nothing says “Time to meet Royalty” like sweat stains. Little did I know I was about to meet two of the most down to earth, loveliest people I’ve ever had the privilege to know.

Lord Henry, The Eight Marquess Conyngham, and his wife Lady Iona, the Marchioness of Conyngham, were our guests at The Urban Grape last night for a tasting and bottle signing of their new Irish Whiskey, Slane Castle.

I was pretty excited, as they had chosen our store for the signing because they felt we shared a common vision and purpose. We are two family owned businesses. Two families dedicated to hand selling – bottle by bottle if need be – to cement our reputations for quality and customer service. Two husband and wife teams who realized that good was not good enough, decided to go for it, and have found that the hard road is also paved with insurmountable joy. It’s just that two of us live in a condo, and two of us live in, well, an ancestral castle.

From the perspective of selling bottles and promoting liquor, last night was very good. I’ll be honest, not blockbuster, but for a store that has been open four months and is known more for selling wine, we moved a LOT of booze last night. But that was beside the point. Roughly 85% of people that came in and tried Slane Castle Irish Whiskey loved it and bought a bottle. But that was beside the point too. What made last night so special, so other-worldly, was the vignettes that took place in The Urban Grape during the tasting. Things that TJ and I could have only dreamed of when sat in Italy two and a half years ago and decided to open a wine store.

Let’s start with the gentleman that bought two bottles, on which Henry cheekily inscribed, “One for now” and “One for later.” After a good laugh, Henry told us he had tried very hard for a third, on which he would have inscribed “One for very much later.” He then proceed to laugh about that all night. To be sure, Henry is a bit of an imp.

Or the young guy (who met a bunch of his friends there, and let me tell you, single ladies, you were sad to have missed this crew), who told Henry that when he was young he had moved from a part of Ireland that no one had EVER heard of; not only had Henry heard of it, but had family there and had been there. They talked and talked like old, long lost friends.

It was the man whose daughter asked me so kindly to take a picture of her father with Henry, and then asked me to post it here so they could see it. They were both thrilled to have met him, tried his Whiskey, and gotten a bottle signed.

Hysterically, a long lost Harvard pal of Henry’s had called earlier in the day to reserve a bottle so she could surprise him. In she walked, a forty year old picture of Henry at Harvard in hand. Henry was in disbelief. He had been telling us Harvard stories all night, and here was a piece of his history right in front of him.

How about the precocious but exquisitely mannered nine year old girl who came in with her mom? I started telling her how Madonna had played a concert at Slane Castle. “Madonna was to me and your mom what Lady Gaga is to you,” I explained and her eyes lit up. What ensued was a hilarious discussion about meat dresses, Taylor Swift and so much more. She came back an hour later with her dad, to give me a picture of the Slane Castle bottle that she had drawn for me. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.

But nothing, NOTHING, beats Shane. Shane walked into the store just as sweaty as I had been, but he was an unstoppable force on a mission. “Lord Henry,” he started, “you indirectly set me on my life’s course and I am here tonight to thank you.” It seems that as a young boy Shane had seen U2′s documentary, “Unforgettable Fire,” that was shot at Slane Castle and had decided right then and there that he would work in film and with musicians. He’s now the Concert Lighting Designer at Paradise Rock Club and loves his job. He credits it all to Slane Castle, U2 and Henry.

In front of us all Shane whipped out a sealed copy of U2′s Unforgettable Fire album. You could tell this was one of his life’s treasures. He looked around and said, “What I am about to do is going to dramatically lower the collector’s value of this album,” and r-i-i-p. Took the plastic right off so Henry could sign it. There was literally not a dry eye.

After tasting and signing and buying, Shane headed for the door. “Shane, wait!” I said. “There’s no need to rush out, you can hang for a while if you want.” “No,” said Shane, so contentedly. “I got what I came for.” And he had.

After the signing we headed to The Capital Grille with Henry and Iona and Chris Swinning from Carolina, Slane Castle’s distributor. We had such a comfortable, easy dinner, it was like dining with friends we had known forever. We drank too much (actually, I think only I drank too much), Henry divulged some fun tidbits about the musicians that have played at Slane Castle, and I not so jokingly demanded that Bon Jovi play Slane Castle in the near future. As we dropped Iona and Henry off at The Somerset Club, Iona said to me, “Well, you really must come over!” “Come over?” I questioned. “You mean, come over to….Ireland?” I damn near fainted in the middle of Beacon Street. I love, love, love, that she said “come over.”

On our website site, we have the following line: “Welcome to The Urban Grape – a neighborhood wine store that creates community, memories and joy through the experience of wine.” Last night, with the help of whiskey, not wine, our mission was blissfully achieved.

Are you planning on going to Wine Riot on October 23rd and 24th?  Well then, you should probably stop by The Urban Grape for some discounted tickets tomorrow (Saturday the 25th) from 2-5. We’re also going to be handing out The Urban Grape/Wine Riot Scavenger Hunt clues. All you have to do is bring your clues to Wine Riot, answer all of the questions, bring your completed form back to The Urban Grape, and you’ll receive 10% off your next purchase of wine or 20% off your next case or mixed case of wine. Pretty cool, no?

The best news of all is that TJ and Eileen are going to be part of Wine Riot’s Wine Intelligence Unit, so they will be there to show you around, taste with you, and help you with your Scavenger Hunt questions.  So, let’s go – Join in the Hunt!

My family has a guest blogging obsession. Which is okay in this case because it overlaps with a growing obsession in the Douglas household – Syrah. TJ’s been bringing home bottles of Syrah to try and we have both been enthralled. The other night when he said he was opening up a Cab to go with our homemade Sunday night spaghetti sauce, I actually felt disappointed. By Cabernet! So we opened a Syrah instead and all was right in the world. Apparently, my father feels the same way and has a few words to share with you on this subject…

The latest editions of the two major monthly wine journals, Wine Advocate by Robert Parker and Wine Spectator both had a lot to say about Syrah and its failure to be the hit which many people forecast a few years ago. HOORAY!!! Now we can really capitalize on the true greatness of Syrah. Which is: VALUE. If you like a big red wine then you are probably paying way too much for Cabernet. Sure the Napa Cabs are wonderful and I am an unabashed devotee. But, let’s face it, there are some serious drawbacks to Cab. The first? PRICE: The better it is the more it costs. You can easily pay more than $300 a bottle for very good Cab. Next? TANNINS: Let’s face it, if you don’t put a good bottle of Cab down for years you are missing out on what you paid for. If you drink it too soon, you have that bitter taste of early tannins to compromise your pleasure. Not so with Syrah. Yes, you really can enjoy a good young Syrah right out of the bottle.

Syrah does benefit from time in the cellar in the same way Cabernet does. However, Syrah also drinks young right out of the bottle with much less aeration time than Cab. That means you can order a bottle of Syrah at your favorite restaurant and generally expect it to be memorable immediately. I am always frustrated by the problem of ordering a great Cab or Barolo and then having to wait over an hour before it really opens up. Do you think I can sit there waiting for an hour? No. A taste here and a taste there and I’m lucky to have anything left an hour later to let me see how good it would have been if I had left it alone. Not so with a Syrah; pull the cork and drink it down, it’s wonderful. And, thanks to the fact that it hasn’t become wildly popular we can expect to continue to enjoy very favorable pricing. Salud!!!

(I think you can now all see from whom I get my charming wit. Besides that, please come to UG and get a bottle of Syrah to try. We promise you will not be disappointed!)

TJ and I haven’t had a date night since August 18th. Not that I’m counting or anything. So when he asked me to join him for the Kathryn Hall tasting at Post 390 on Wednesday night I dusted off my tightest pants and a shiny shirt and decided to make the most of it. What ended up occurring was the most unexpectedly fantastic date night.

Truth be told, when he picked me up at 7:30 I was in a lump on the couch in my two-day dirty Lululemon work out pants. The kids had just gotten to bed and I was sitting for the first time all day. I had worn all my hats that day – working woman, working mom, mom and housewife – and was not exactly in the mood to head out. But after we walked out the door he and I both perked up. Until we we hit the tasting room.

I’ve only been to Post 390 once before and I really like the space. It’s cool, hip and fairly wide open. But their private room is small and it was packed. The tasting table was pushed into the darkest corner of the room and nearly inaccessible. We managed to snag a glass of the Hall Sauvignon Blanc (me) and the Hall T Bar T Ranch Sauvignon Blanc (TJ). My wine was delicious. Richer than many Sauvignon Blancs, but still light enough to make the drinking easy. I did not part with my glass happily. TJ’s, on the other hand, was not really what we look for in a Sauvignon Blanc. We decided it almost had a California Chardonnay finish – big, oaky, and in your face.

The issue was that we could never get back to the table for another glass of wine. The line for the wine was lo-o-ong. Turned out that everyone there was invited for retail purchases from their wine club, and the trade was not invited for another hour and a half. Whoops. So we did what any couple desperate for a date night would do. Headed down to the bar for an impromptu dinner.

Best decision we’ve made in a while. We chitchatted for a while with Guy, the GM, and Jay, the beverage manager, and I decided on some ridiculously fabulous infused vodka drink that tasted almost exactly like the glass of Urban Riesling that TJ ordered. First up? Duck Confit Potstickers and a boatload of conversation. Remember, TJ and I practically have not seen each other since June! Even though we were exhausted we never stopped talking. TJ moved on to the pan seared catfish over red beans while I continued to make friends with my martini. From there, we dipped into the biggest piece of banana cream pie that I have ever had. Biggest and best. So banana-y, not too heavy, not too sweet, great crust. Oh my God. We laughed at the size of the piece when it was served and then proceeded to eat the whole thing (I wrote these exact words after we ate the whole key lime pie from The Capital Grille a few months ago…it’s a bad habit we have).

When we managed to find ourselves back upstairs at the tasting, the room had drastically cleared out and we were able to taste through the wines. The Hall Napa Cabernet was the other real standout to us and we picked that up along with the Sauvignon Blanc. Both are available at the store.

Although we went for the Hall tasting, in the end it was Post 390 that really made our night. A cozy corner near the fire, a little food, some yummy drinks, and a chance to reconnect. A perfect, if unexpected, date night.

This past weekend TJ and I took the kids to The Life is Good Festival in Canton, MA. We were pretty excited – after all, the very name of the festival pretty much sums up our state of mind these days – but no one was more excited than Noah. His favorite band, The Laurie Berkner Band, was playing on the kid’s stage and he talked about seeing her for a whole week straight.

I have fond memories of hanging out on a blanket with my parents watching Willie Nelson when I was a kid, and was excited to build the same sort of memory for Noah and Jason. Forgetting, of course, that I was probably eight while they are four and 18 months. There wasn’t a whole lot of hanging out going on. But we did have a lot of fun.

In general I thought the festival was very well run. There were a ton of activities, lots of music, the parking and transportation were surprisingly easy and there was excellent music everywhere. There was even a wine bar – practically the only anonymously run vending area at the whole festival. Don’t think we won’t be all over that opportunity next year!

Because I have always loved marketing and the communication of a brand, the festival was also interesting to me on that level. Every logo or font on the entire 40 acre farm was in some way connected with Life is Good. For instance, the font on the Citizen’s Bank tent looked just like the UPS font looked just like the Cabot Cheese font, and so on. And the font used was the one in the Life is Good logo.

I have no idea how Life is Good got everyone to agree to forego their own brand identity and adopt theirs. Pretty unheard of. In addition, every exit sign or parking sign or ANY kind of sign all had the LIG font. Very well done on their part because now it is completely ingrained in my head.

Chipotle Mexican Grill was the other big stand out for me.

They were not selling any food, instead they used their tent for an interactive activity for kids. Both Noah and Jason (and every kid for a mile, frankly) got a flower pot and decorated it with stickers provided by Chipotle. They said things like “Organic” and “Love” and had little pictures of the sun and rain, and big pictures of tomatoes, jalapenos and onions. After they decorated their pots with the stickers they filled them from a big galvanized steel tub of dirt and then planted four cilantro seeds in it. Brilliant. The kids loved it, and now the pots are sitting on my window sill. So I didn’t get to buy a burrito at the festival (messy, heavy, not the right place for it anyway) but every time I wash my dishes I think about a Chipotle burrito. On top of that, Noah said he wants to try the cilantro when it grows and wants to try all of the food that was on the stickers, i.e. VEGETABLES. Thank you Chipotle!! Between you and Michelle Obama (he has a major crush on the Obamas), Noah just might eat something green this year. And I just might forgive the fact that your burritos have over 1,000 calories in them.

In contrast, terrible marketing by Chase Bank. Whose name I remember only because I cursed you repeatedly after your guerilla marketing girl handed Jason a bag of candy while I wasn’t looking and I had to pry it out of his death grip. Candy. Because I really needed my kids coked out on sugar in the middle of 25,000 people.

The very best part (even better than the pulled pork sandwich and the ice cold beers) was when Laurie Berkner came on stage. Noah sat up on TJ’s shoulders for an hour, barely breathing from excitement. When I finally got him to look down at me, he said, “Momma…she’s real…”. Amazing.

I was looking back through old blog posts the other day and remembered that I had wanted to start a fairly regular column called “Grape News” that would keep everyone up to date on new happenings at UG. And then I promptly forgot that I wanted to start a new column called “Grape News.” I am resurrecting it now.

Today was our Indian Summer Grand Rose Tasting.

TJ and I lo-o-ove Rose and drink it all the time. We brought a lot of people over to the dark side with us today. Along with the new Rose converts, a lot of people came in specifically for the chance to try so many great Roses at one time. We compared varietals, regions, sweetness and much more today. The general consensus is that Rose rocks and people are looking forward to extending the drinking season into the fall.

People seem amazed by how much wine we have open at the store. In addition to the 16 Enomatic selections, TJ almost always has a few extra bottles open for our customers to try. Today there were the Bordeaux from yesterday’s tasting, as well as a new Napa Cab called Uppercut (great name and equally delicious). The Tuesday Tweets are usually open as well, and today we had 12 bottles of Rose open too. So that means there were over 30 bottles of wine open today. This is all so we can get a good sense of our customer’s palates by tasting with them, and so that our customers can feel comfortable with what they are purchasing.

We are getting ready to unveil our new Urban Sampler next week. Take a peek at the picture below. Any guesses?

When I announce the Sampler on Tuesday there will be a special SECOND Sampler unveiled as well. This one will retail for $30 and will make all you Bomber fans happy.

We are playing around with some new shelving in our Sake section as we prepare for the arrival of over 30 new Sakes. These will all be shelved by October 1st, which is National Sake Day. Mark you calendars for October 2, when you will be able to taste many of these Sakes during a Sake Grand Tasting hosted by Richard Auffrey.

Ever hear TJ refer to some of the wines in the store as “skim milk?” Ever wonder what in the world he means by that?

Join us on Tuesday September 14 from 6-7 pm for the first of our monthly Progressive Scale Education Series. TJ will teach us about the Progressive Scale and taste us through three Chardonnays – a light bodied, a medium bodied, and a full bodied – so we can taste the difference for ourselves. Also on hand? Skim milk, whole milk and heavy cream so you can see why he uses that analogy when he’s talking about the weight of the wine.

Gift cards are coming! You have all been really patient with us while we figured out exactly what we wanted to do and got them ordered. They will be here in a few weeks, in plenty of time for gift giving this winter.

Speaking of winter, and before that, the start of fall…TJ’s month has been jam packed with distributor tastings and we are in the process of ordering a whole new fall line up of wine and beer. Very exciting stuff – lots of small producers with unique offerings. So check in with us often this fall to see what exciting new things we have in the store for you.

And lastly, TJ’s passion for Bourbon is really on display at The Urban Grape. We have so many unique and interesting bottles on the shelves, and have many of them open for our customers to try. We keep the open sample bottles behind the desk, so if you come in and would like to taste through a few just let us know. And don’t forget that we recently LOWERED all of our liquor prices.

That’s about it for now! The new Enomatic selections and Urban Samplers will be posted on Tuesday, with links for you on Twitter and Facebook.

It will be a quiet day from us tomorrow. We’re taking the kids to the Life is Good Festival!

Have you noticed that it’s hard to find South African wine on our shelves lately? That’s because our newest staff member, Monica, keeps selling it all! Monica is nothing short of a South African wine expert. She worked for Spier Winery in South Africa for five years, traveling back and forth to South Africa the whole time.  She developed a deep love for the country and the wine . TJ and I share Monica’s affection for the country, having honeymooned there six years ago.

Monica has a calling for Pinotage, a somewhat misunderstood grape. But when she tastes our customers on it, it always sells…

Many great wine growing regions have a signature grape variety for
which they are known. Zinfandel is associated with California. Malbec
makes the great red wines of Argentina. Australia has Shiraz and
Spain the Tempranillo, to name but a few.

Many of these trademark grape varieties were not appreciated in their
youth, but none has had as convoluted a path to appreciation as
Pinotage, the grape synonymous with South Africa. Learn the
fascinating history of this grape variety that makes some of South
Africa’s most renowned red wines.

Pinotage was born in the early twentieth century, yet orphaned and
forgotten until early sixties. Rediscovered, exploited, only to end
up being reviled and abandoned again until the early nineties when
the forgotten Pinotage so impressed judges at the International Wine
& Spirit Competition, that its South African winemaker became the
first ever to win the “Winemaker of the Year” award.

If Pinotage were a person, the story would be the stuff of a
Hollywood movie. Come taste and learn about the grape that put South
Africa on the world’s winemaking map.

Cheers!!!

The Tannat grape? I don’t think I’m alone in saying that this is one grape that I’ve not tried before (although I’m sure TJ has…remember, TJ is the wine nerd, Hadley is the trusting wine drinker). But try it I did while out at Oleana tonight – the 2007 Domaine Ilarria Irouleguy.

This wine is a perfect example of why I should not shy away from ordering wines myself. I always leave it to TJ, and those of you who have met him know why. The man has an amazing recall for wine and is passionate on the subject. When you go out to dinner with a guy like TJ, you don’t often reach for the wine list yourself. But because I am married to TJ, whenever I am out to dinner with friends the list ends up in my hands. So, I do my best.

I told the sommelier at Oleana that we were looking for something “big, fruity and tasty.” I find the fact that he picked this wine to be interesting. It was big, but it was also textured. Really textured. The Tannat grape is very thick skinned so the tannins in the wine are quite pronounced. I think I chewed the first sip. It was also earthy and, I thought, a little acidic…not fruity by my definition. But it was very good, and different than anything I had ever had before. I was very glad that I tried it.

I was out tonight with Rebecca Willson, the owner of The Urban Hound and the soon to be opened Urban Hound Hotel.

Becky started walking our dog Chappy when he was a puppy and her business was fairly new, and she has become an amazing friend over the years. She was a source of endless support while we got The Urban Grape up and running, and now we are trying to return the favor while she is in the home stretch of opening her luxury dog hotel in the South End.

We spent the night talking about the stresses of starting a company, laughing about our families and friends, and oohing and aahing over the Vegetarian Tasting Menu at Oleana (oh my God, the falafel? And the homemade Greek yogurt on everything…YUM!). It definitely is not easy starting a family business, but nights out with good friends (and interesting grapes!) definitely make the road a little easier.

So tell me, have you had the Tannat grape before? And, if so, what did you think?