Availability: Valley Gin is now available for in-store purchase at the distillery bottle shop and available for delivery within California through our online shop.
Bottles have also landed elsewhere in CA, as well as in AZ, CA, DC, FL, GA, IL, MA, MO, NJ, and NY. If you’re in one of those states, our Spirit Locator can help you search for bottles near you. Availability in CO, LA, TN, and TX is also coming soon!
Ok, so I have a question for y’all. What is your favorite $20 and $40 bottle of white wine? How about reds?
Red with beef and lamb and white with poultry and pork is about the top of my wine acumen and I am hoping to get past the “costs more = better wine” or “pretty packaging” style of buying wine.
My favorite $40 bottle of red wine is a Turley zinfandel.
ETA: for $20 whites, I really like the various cheaper French chardonnays, pouilly fuise, macon villages, chablis if I can find one cheap enough. I go more by producer than anything else, and trust Louis Jadot to usually be good. I also like the Alsatian rieslings. I don’t really have a $20 go-to red, but end up drinking a lot of pinot noir.
In that same vein of French whites, I’ve had good luck with Saint-Veran and, of course, Sancerre, although the latter are rarely in the $20 range anymore.
If only there was someone on this board who made red and white wine at those price points. And will even ship it you!!
There is an incredible amount of great wines between $20-40. Neil T and Austro have some really nice suggestions, to which I would add:
Hunter Valley Semillon
South African Chenin blanc
German Kabinett Riesling
Etna Bianco
Friuliano
Assyrtiko
Spanish Garnacha (especially from Rioja or Sierra de Gredos)
Etna Rosso
Austrian/Hungarian Blaufrankisch
New California (the list would be too long for here, so happy to give you specific suggestions)
Loire Cabernet franc
Australian Grenache
Someday I hope to be able to order some of those.
You have to be special. In the mean time you’ll have to settle for the Turley.
Thanks for the suggestions, all! I’ll start (slowly) making my way through some of these suggestions. We are not big wine drinkers but it’s always good to have some around for when friends come over or when we are in the mood. And, @MikeS, I might need to try a small mail-order order. See if I can get the Mrs. hooked.
It is a very exclusive list. Which is to say you’ve both made the cut. We’re planning to have a Fall Release for the Mailing List next week. Keep an eye on your inbox for the email with more info.
That goes for you too @das - dm your email address and I’ll get you set up.
Oh yeah, wine grape Harvest has started here in California. Not that my presence was missed in these parts, but I’ll probably be even more absent the next couple of months. At least, I can justify the amount of bourbon I consume to maintain my sanity.
I saw Mom over the weekend.
She doesn’t miss you.
Alas.
We all have a job to do. Yours is putting wine on the table.
It’s the Lord’s work. Almost literally.
I have blocked out anything that happened today and am enjoying Kelt XO and Wes Montgomery’s “Smokin’ at the Half Note”.
So I started adding a few dashes of bitters to my Last Word. I’ve tried a few, but found that cherry bitters hits the mark. OutSTANDing.
My mom used to say “I don’t know what I’d do without you but I’d rather”
Awesome. Hope you enjoyed it.
Now back to Harvest.
Tonight we’re having a Spanish MontSant (Potente, from the Barcelona area). I’m not sure how to describe it, except to say that it’s lighter than the Garnache (Tres Picos) that I usually drink. Worth a try if you stumble across it.
Montsant is a great region!! Heaps of old vine Garnacha (Grenache) and Mataro. Vineyards are at a higher altitude than nearby Priorat, so they tend to be lighter in style and much less expensive.
