Food & Wine Experience

Andrew and I attended the Twin Cities Food & Wine Experience this past Saturday. This is our second annual trip to the event and it was as much fun as we remembered! The wine was fantastic. The highlight was at The Wine Company table and tasting room. We signed up for a special tasting in the room (a free extra, you just had to know what website to go to to sign up beforehand!) and met Luc, the 9th generation winemaker from Bouchard Pere & Fils, a French Winery (located in the the Beaune region of the Burgundy region) whose history dates back to the 1700's. We tried 4 Premier Crus - two whites and two reds... at $50-$60/bottle they were way beyond our budget but incredible to taste while listening to live commentary from one of the members of the Bouchard family (French accent and all)! If only we could have been sitting amongst the vines in Burgundy... sigh....

Back to reality, we came across what could possibly be our new favorite "go-to" red and white wines that each retail at $11/bottle! Four Vines Winery (Paso Robles, CA) makes an awesome unoaked Chardonnay (2006 "Naked" Chardonnay, Santa Barbera, see bottle, right) and a tasty Zinfandel (called Four Vines OVC (Old Vine Cuvee) Zinfandel). I know that you can find them at France 44, we ordered up a few bottles right away from their website - FYI, if you order online you can get this wine for $9.35/bottle, as they are offering a F&W Experience discount. Just search "Four Vines" from their home page. You can pick the wine up right at the store.

Cheers!