There seems to be a bit of confusion when it comes to Syrah and Shiraz. In my latest column, "The Wine Life", in Ladue News, I give you a little insight.
Check it out and join me in a glass. It's all a matter of taste.
The Wine Life: Syrah or Shiraz? CLICK HERE
CHEERS!
Stanley Browne, CS, CSW
Sunday's event celebrating local chocolatiers, fine wine and community was a 'sweet' success.
Special thanks to participating chocolate producers:
Bissinger's Handcrafted Chocolatier
Café Cioccolato
Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company
Companion Bakery
Kakao Chocolate
Little Dipper Chocolate
Mom's Originals
Oh Sheila! Chocolates
The Chocolate Affair
And wine sponsors:
A. Bommarito Wines
Chaumette Winery
Classique Wines
Major Brands
It was an amazing event and we are proud to support, through a portion of the proceeds, College Bound a nationally acclaimed organizations that helps at risk youth in St. Louis prepare and succeed in 4-year colleges.
And an extra special thanks to Jennifer Johnson, Marketing Director at Chaumette for partnering with us on making this event such a success. We can't wait for next year!
In case you missed it, here's a recap of The Art of Chocolate and Wine, (and shopping guide) very well said by George Mahe of St. Louis Magazine.
Pssst…and chocolate and wine baskets are still available to order in time for Valentine's Day.
Just contact us.
Cheers!
Arlene Maminta Browne
BUBBLES – the ultimate celebratory drink.
Welcomes to the world of bubbles. In this New Year of 2012 I invite you to
celebrate every day! Here is a little sip for thought in one of my recent articles in Ladue News:
The Wine Life: Bubbles and Beyond
CHEERS!
Stanley Browne
Oh Sheila! Chocolates: Bacon Bark and Bacon Truffles
Dark and delectable; velvety, rich, smooth and creamy. Its powerful, yet tender sweetness lingers long after it slowly melts away.
Chocolate. The word itself conjures dizzying thoughts of delight and decadence. It's easy to lose yourself in its luxury, and paired with some lush and robust wines, the result can be euphoric, a playground for the senses.
When my trusted friend and brilliant colleague, Jennifer Johnson, Marketing Director at Chaumette Winery, approached me with the idea of gathering the finest local chocolate producers for a chocolate and wine event, I was eager to help. Jennifer's wealth of wine knowledge, as well as, strong marketing and PR experience has made planning for this event seamless, and every bit more worthy.
Stanley and I are proud to live and own a business in St. Louis. We are equally passionate about supporting local businesses and our community. Some of the finest chocolate producers and wines are right here in our region and we believe we should foster, support and celebrate what we are all about.
We are also passionate about the people of our community, and felt it was important that we include a philanthropic component to our efforts. For us, education is the key to economic freedom, so in this inaugural year of The Art of Chocolate and Wine, we chose to honor College Bound. With a portion of the proceeds going to support, low-income College Bound students, we can celebrate all that our community has to offer.
On Sunday, January 22, we hope you will join us for The Art of Chocolate and Wine: Inspire Your Desires! Celebrate and taste the finest local, artisan, hand-crafted chocolates we have to offer and sip on wines that will ignite your senses.
After all, isn't everyone looking for a little inspiration these days?
Special thanks to our fabulous chocolatiers and wine sponsors:
Bissinger's Handcrafted Chocolatier
Café Cioccolato
Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company
Companion Bakery
Kakao Chocolate
Little Dipper Chocolate
Mom's Originals
Oh Sheila! Chocolates
The Chocolate Affair
A. Bommarito Wines
Chaumette Winery
Classique Wines
Major Brands
Arlene Maminta Browne
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”-Benjamin Franklin
So I have been asked to start writing this blog on beer. Even though I have a love for wine and opening a jammy blend from Rhone with friends, drinking the rosés of Provence and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.
90% of the time when I’m ending a phone or text conversation with a friend the words, “Oh and grab a case on the way,” is the way our talk ends. The more I thought about it, you can say I’ve come to think of the relationship of wine and beer like this: Where wine is the expression of the grape, beer is an expression of the artist. Unencumbered by the traditions and rules that the wine industry has to deal with, a beer makers creation is limited only by his or hers imagination.
With beer if you taste chocolate, coffee, or even pumpkin spice, odds are you taste it because that is an ingredient itself, with the quantity of those ingredients specifically chosen to give the drinker a prefect mouthful of beer every time.
I’ve worked at Robust for almost three years and the one thing that makes me chuckle is that we have a beer list with almost thirty beers broken down in the similar to our wine, easy-to-use Robust Factors. There are some people that still don’t know we even sell beer. The beer categories are a little different than the wine: Fresh, Lively, Hearty, Robust, and Fruity. The beer list changes about twice a year, and since its spring, that means its time to switch it up. There are a couple of heavy hitters that have a good chance of making the cut due to their style and expression. From Goose Island Brewery in Chicago there is the India Pale Ale, and from Brazil the Xingu Black Beer.
The India Pale Ale when poured into a glass has a great burnt orange color and a nice head that hangs on the glass like lace with every drink (lace, actually being the technical name for it). Time to drink, it starts with just a tingle from the hops on the tongue followed by fruit and malt coating the tongue then finishing with a long hoppy finish which lasts at least 7 seconds.
Xingu black beer is a very unique beer when poured into a glass. Carbonated with nitrogen instead of CO2 the bubbles in the beer are light, the beer is smooth as it rolls over the tongue tasting chocolate, malt and just a hint of red fruit. This is a beer that is a great segway beer for a person looking to break into the world of dark beers, and a beer for dark beer lovers to drink sitting on a patio on a hot summer day.
So next time you go to Robust look your server in the eyes and ask them for a “twelve-ounce three-ounce,” and I promise you will get a laugh out of them and a great drink in your hand, ENJOY!
Chad Thompson
Greetings Friends of the Vine!
With Easter Sunday quickly approaching and spring in full force, it's time to start entertaining.
The new season calls for a diversity of foods from fresh vegetables and fruits to salmon and lamb.
Here are my picks for this season's dining table:
08 Parducci Sustainable White, Mendocino County $11
09 Chaumette Chardonel Reserve, Ste. Genevieve, Missouri $17
09 Hahn Pinot Noir, Monterey, California $14
06 Algodon (Syrah, Cabernet, Malbec), Mendoza, Argentina $16
All available in our shoppe!
Happy Spring!
Cheers!
Stanley Browne, CSW
I had been waiting for this with bated breath for months. Pinnacle Imports, who carries some of the top Spanish brands along with a whole host of incredible wines from other counties, was throwing a big party in the park: "Pig & Pinot".
Along with a whole roasted pig, we had two special guests of honor.
At the forefront of Pinnacle's portfolio are two Pinot Noir producers: Brian Loring and Peter Cargasacchi. Brian and Peter each source grapes from particular world-famous vineyard sites each year, and make a wine with only the grapes from that vineyard site.
Brian Loring, with the ears.
So Brian Loring makes a wine called Gary's Vineyard, Rosella's Vineyard, Durell Vineyard, etc. In fact, Brian even gets grapes from Peter Cargasacchi himself, and makes a wine called Cargasacchi Vineyard. Bottling single-vineyard wines creates wines that are incredibly nuanced-based and quite different from one another. They also can get kind of pricey, but are often very much worth it. They're all the rage for serious Pinot drinkers.
So what's another way that wine is made? Most wineries make wine from their own fruit, or source from multiple sites and blend that fruit with their own fruit. For example, in this process, fruit from many different vineyard sites in Sonoma County could be blended together. Maybe a little from Sonoma Coast, a bit from Russian River Valley, and so on. Wine like this can be great because it lets the winemaker craft a wine of averages. The different grapes from different places can be used in different amounts to create a product of evenness and balance. What's lost in this method, though, is a very true representation of the sense of place. All avid readers of my postings have seen me throw around this term time and time again, and I'll do it once more: this essence of the place (and I'm even involving all romantic conceptions tied up in this idea) is known as terroir.
Single-vineyard wines are about terroir to the n-th degree.
The party lasted from 2-8pm, and there was plenty of wine to last the entire time. All of these Pinots were there:
2007 Cargasacchi, Pinot Noir — Santa Rita Hills
2008 Loring Wine Company, Pinot Noir — Russian River Valley
2008 Loring Wine Company "Shea Vineyard", Pinot Noir — Willamette Valley, Oregon
2008 Loring Wine Company "Durell Vineyard", Pinot Noir — Sonoma Coast — 92pts
2008 Loring Wine Company "Rosella's Vineyard", Pinot Noir — Santa Lucia Highlands — 93pts
2008 Loring Wine Company "Gary's Vineyard", Pinot Noir — Santa Lucia Highlands — 92pts
2008 Loring Wine Company "Cargasacchi Vineyard", Pinot Noir — Santa Rita Hills — 90pts
Though we wont be carrying these in Robust, I can special order anything into the store that you would like. All of the Pinots retail for around $42.
Along with all of the Pinots, we also had Peter Cargasacchi's 2008 Point Concepcion "Caponera", Chardonnay and his 2009 Point Concepcion "Celestina" Rose of Pinot Grigio. This is an awesome little rose, onion skin in color. Crisp, rich and dry. They had an entire Gatorade jug filled with it. Like the kind you see in football games on FOX on Sunday afternoons.
Since we were at one of the picnic sites in Forest Park, no glass was allowed. All of the wine had been transferred to plastic jugs, and then stickered with the corresponding label. It was a really funny experience to pour wine of that quality out of plastic containers.
By the end of the night the pig head somehow ended up on a stick – an erie Lord Of The Flies metaphor. Once a head ends up on a stick, that's when you know it's time to go home.
The wines and food were exceptional, and it was tons of fun to watch Peter Cargascchi play Twister with some of the kids. Out of respect, I spared him the embarrassment and kindly withheld posting the picture 
Until next time,
–Jayce
Greetings Friends of the Vine!
I recently was introduced to an interesting new way to open wine without a proper wine key from two friends, Hilary Musgrave Murphy and T.J. Birkenmeier (a.k.a. The Wise Buddha-hahahaha). Both Hilary and Birk, independent of each other, have encouraged me to learn this new technique.
Should this be the new wine service at Robust? Of course, I'll have to get just the right equipment.
The French are always coming up with something new when it comes to wine! This came about because Airport security took away the wine opener. Now you arrive at the hotel and want to open the bottle of wine! Who needs an opener anyway!
Feel free to try this at home; I think I will too!
Cheers!
Stanley
One of the many perks of working in the wine business is the trade-only tastings. Recently, all us industry folk were at Acero in Maplewood, to visit with Empson Wine Importers who were in town showcasing their new vintage offerings of Brunello and Barolo from some of the top producers in their portfolio.
I'm sure at one time or another you've heard the mention of Brunello or Barolo. I imagine you may have been confused about what these words mean.
Many of the wines we're used to drinking—especially those that are made in California—are labeled by the dominant grape variety that's in the bottle. So we've come to expect to see the grape name on the bottle. But, once you get over to Italy, the labeling scheme doesn't play out the same way.
The Italians long-ago discovered that the place that the grapes are grown in dictates most loudly to the final quality and style of the wine. This sense of place is often referred to as terroir. Aside from the particular soil that the grapes are borne from, the historical wine making practices of that place and historical grape varieties used are also overwhelming constituents of the final wine.
So what do the words Brunello and Barolo refer to? Italian wine is named after the place that it comes from. Barolo is an area in the Piedmont–the northwest area at the top of the country. Brunello comes from the town of Montalcino, an area within Tuscany. Tuscany is about about two-fifths of the way south from the top of Italy. Barolo is made from the grape Nebbiolo. Brunello is made from the Sangiovese grape, the same that's used to make Chianti.
We have quite a few Barolos and Brunellos on the wine list here at Robust, and there are a few new ones that we're very excited about. A distributor who specializes in fine Italian wines recently had a firesale, and we're now offering a few Barolos at incredible discount.
The best Barolo offerings on our list are the 2003 Collina Serragrilli Barolo and the 2005 Paolo Scavino Barolo. The 2003 Collina is now showing beautifully because of the extra few years it has been aging in the bottle. The 2005 Paolo is still wound a little tight, but is presenting nicely after a bit of time in a decanter. They both show nice earthy tones and notes of herbs. The classic rich, sour cherry is ever-present, and they've got a lot of nuance.
In general, Barolos are big, tannic wines. They need time to age, and they need time in the glass to open up. If you love the flavor profile of Barolos but need something a little lighter, a Barbaresco is a great option for you. They come from the same highly acclaimed region in Piedmont, are made from the same grape, but spend less time in oak and are generally made to be able to drink earlier. The well-known adage goes something like: "The Italians drink their Barbarescos while they're waiting for their Barolos to come around."
My favorite Barbarescos on the list are the 2003 Collina Serragrilli Barbaresco and the 2005 Paitin Barbaresco. The Collina is at a price that's impossible to beat—$26 retail and $50—for wine of this quality and with this much age development.
So put down the Sauvignon Blanc—you know that you've already had your summer fill! Come in and try a bottle of Barolo or Barbaresco along with our Spring Rack of Lamb. And ask your server to decant the wine—it will give it the little bit of extra air that will make it shine.
My top four recommendations are:
2003 Collina Serragrilli Barbaresco - $26 retail / $50 list 2003 Collina Serragrilli Barolo – $34 retail / $68 list 2005 Paolo Scavino Barolo – $48 retail / $90 list 2005 Paitin Barbaresco – $49.5 retial / $95 list
—Jayce
Greetings Friends of the Vine!
It was my pleasure to visit the Great Day St. Louis set at KMOV-TV this morning and make crab cakes with host Carol Daniel. Time certainly flies when you are on live TV. Good thing we have the magic of television.
Crab cakes have been one of our most popular dishes since we opened nearly 3 years ago so it was fun to actually cook and share the recipe with the viewing audience.
Here is the link to the KMOV Great Day St. Louis
Segment – Crab Cakes and Strawberries
Although there was not much time to discuss wine pairing, we paired this wine with Robust Factor 3: Mellow, 2007 Northfield Chardonnay – Waipara Valley, New Zealand. This classically rich and creamy wine is ripe, but light, with a tropical fruit finish.
Now you can try both the crab cakes and wine for yourself and enjoy a little bit of the Robust life at home!
Cheers!
Stanley