August Wine of the Month Newsletter

Selections from Our All-Stars

If I’m a little overzealous in proclaiming that nearly every month is my “favorite” month of Wine Club, it’s only because I get so excited about each round of selections. But this month, really and truly, just may take the cake. For August, I like to break from the norm a bit. Month after month, I choose a theme or a region, I choose the wines, and I share my humble opinions. But there are over 100 bright and enthusiastic wine and food lovers who work here at Gary’s, and it only seems right that we give them a voice every now and then too. So this month, I approached my esteemed colleagues from all three stores, and asked them to share some of their favorite wine picks for summer with our Wine Club members. They didn’t disappoint. Just as our staff is wonderfully diverse and eclectic, so too are their selections. We ended up with an Albarino from a team member who’s just discovering the complexity of the grape and a red Burgundy from a team member who always has French wine on the brain; a Barolo from a proud Italian expat and a California Cab from a young lady who once made the move from Garden State to Golden State and back again. It’s all here, and it’s all straight from the heart of Gary’s. Enjoy.
-Maggie

All-Time Favorite Food and Wine Pairings
If there’s one thing our staff spends a lot of time doing, it’s trying out different foods with different wines. We asked each of our staff members who picked wine for this month’s selections to tell us their all-time favorite food and wine pairing. Each one is a sure-fire recipe for a good night!

Bunny Neuhart: Stilton cheese and honeycomb with Port

Kathy Brindle: Grilled salmon with Oregon Pinot Noir

Mike Maresca: Lavender-honey ice cream and Sauternes

Ryan Sacks: Italian sausage and peppers with Primitivo

Rich Isel: Jamon Serrano with Rioja

Cesare Martini: Rigatoni with game ragu and Barolo

Geoffrey Brooke: Wood grilled leg of lamb raised on the salt marshes of Bordeaux with a bottle of Pauillac, preferably with a side dish of frites fried in duck fat

Laura Moorin: Dim sum and Champagne


2007 Bertrand Ambroise Bourgogne
2010 August Wine Club Vintner Selection

Bunny is a new addition to our management team at Gary’s, but good food and wine are far from new to her! After a year studying culinary arts at Apicius in Florence, Italy, she came hom e to work with good food and wine every day in our Bernardsville store. Her time in Italy, however, never biased her against good French wine. “White Burgundy is my favorite expression of the Chardonnay grape.” she says. “This bottle shows surprisingly complex olfactics (good smells to the rest of us), starting off citrusy and rounding out with a little butter and spice. This lemon butter nose makes me think of seafood, and I would love to take this bottle to the beach with a lobster roll! The s crew top makes it even more picnic-friendly, so if no lobster rolls are to be had, I’ll take along a loaf of crusty bread and a triple-cream cheese like Pete Gres Charmenois.”

Food pairing: Crusty bread and triple-cream cheese


2007 Acanto Yecla
2010 August Wine Club Vintner Selection

If there’s a country on the cutting edge of high-value wines for still-reasonable prices, it’s Spain, particularly in budding wine regions like Yecla. Here, they produce a blend of Monastrell (65%), Cabernet Sauvignon (20%) and Garnacha (15%) in high altitude vineyards with limestone soils, aged in French and American oak barrels for just under a year. The resulting wine is juicy and new-world in style, and just Kathy’s cup of tea. “Wow, what a mouthful!” She says. “No wimpy salad with this baby; bring on the beef! The nose is loaded with blackberry and black tea aromas, while layers of brambly berries, graphite and cassis fill the palate. Sweet wood smoke and firm tannins round out the finish. I’ll have mine with a beef or lamb burger, grilled medium-rare, topped with manchego cheese, olive tapenade, and maybe a little tzatziki.”

Food pairing: Beef or lamb burgers with Manchego cheese and olive tapenade


2009 Pazo Senorans Albarino
2010 August Wine Club Reserve Selection

Wine Associate Mike Maresca has only been a wine-lover for a few years now, but he’s jumped in with both feet, tasting and learning as much as he can day to day on the floor at Gary’s. When this
Albarino came his way, he rediscovered a grape that he had admittedly been passing by for a while. “When I tried the 2009 vintage of the Pazo Senorans Albarino,” he says, “it reminded me why I like the Albarino grape so much. I like a wine that is distinctive and unique, even difficult to compare to other wines I’ve had. This Albarino in particular, grown in the Rias Baixas region of Spain, is unlike any other I’ve tasted, displaying lemon and tropical aromas and delivering a creamy yet delicate finish. To me, it provides the perfect formula for a nice August wine.” Couldn’t agree with Mike more. Since this wine has arrived on our shelves, several of our staff have declared it’s the best Albarino they’ve tasted in a long time.

Food pairing: Wood-smoked chicken or quail


2008 Jimenez-Landi Sotorrondero
2010 August Wine Club Reserve Selection

Just south of Madrid lies a wine region called Mentrida. Ten years ago, the wines of Mentrida were hardly worth a mention, and rarely earned one. But Jimenez Landi has come bursting on the scene with some glowing reviews and a 93 point Wine Advocate Score for this Syrah-Grenache blend that critic Josh Raynolds called a “hedonist’s delight” and “reminiscent of a top level Cote Rotie.” Bernardsville Wine Associate Ryan Sacks loves this wine for its ability to pair perfectly with one of his favorite dishes, a juicy filet of beef. “With dark fruit flavors and a nice smoky finish, it paired perfectly.” he says. “It’s big enough to stand up to grilled meat but silky enough to sip on its own as well. A very impressive wine and an absolute steal for twenty bucks!”

Food pairing: Filet mignon


2004 Attilio Ghisolfi Barolo
2010 August Wine Club Cellar Selection

When the Wall Street Journal’s “Dow Jones 2004 Barolo Index” came out, five wines were named as their favorites of the vintage. Four were above $50, and the last was the more affordable Attilo Ghisolfi Barolo. Italian-born Wine Associate Cesare Martini of our Madison store is great at chatting about our entire Italian wine section, but has taken a particular liking to this bottling. “(Ghisolfi’s) 2004 Barolo is a bit more traditional than many of the new Barolo producers, with some beautiful licorice notes on both the nose and the palate. Wild cherry fruit, roses and herbs are all present,” he says, “with a palate that’s dense and structured, very firm in its tannins, but without any roughness. Really elegant wine with the right complexity and a pleasurable spiciness.” Cesare recommends opening 2 hours before pouring and pairing this wine with pasta with a game ragu. Salute!

Food pairing: Rigatoni with game ragu


2005 Dominio de Atauta Ribera del Duero
2010 August Wine Club Cellar Selection

From one of Spain’s greatest wine regions, Ribera del Duero, the 2005 Dominio de Atauta is a robust, modern-styled expression of this region’s wine. Sourced from 60 year old Tinta del Pais vines (the local clone of Tempranillo), the wine is farmed biodynamically and bottled unfiltered. Rich Isel, a longtime Wine Associate in our Madison store and a fan of good Spanish reds, enjoys the complexity of this wine. “On the nose, there are notes of earth, mocha, and vanilla, while the palate shows dark fruits, earth, mocha, toasty oak, and minerals.” He says. Rich recommends pairing this robust yet gracious wine with an herb-crusted roast pork loin and fingerling potatoes.

Food pairing: Herb-crusted roast pork loin and fingerling potatoes


2006 Staglin Salus Cabernet Sauvignon
2010 August Wine Club Premiere Selection

Winery owners Garen and Shari Staglin brought their first vintage of Cabernet to the market in 1986, just around the time that Gary’s Wine & Marketplace was also established, and almost immediately earned a reputation as a top-notch Napa producer. Thankfully, their Salus label has managed to fly (comparatively) under the radar for all these years, despite the winemaking talent of Frederik Johannson and fruit raised by leading viticulturalist David Abreau. Black fruit aromas dominate the nose, with secondary notes of graphite, earth and bay leaf. Cherry flavors give way to rich plum, black cherry and blackberry dusted with mouth-coating dark cocoa tannins. To Cab-lover and one-time California transplant Laura Moorin of our Wayne store, it’s everything a Napa Cabernet is supposed to be. “Power. Complexity. Firmness. Aromatics. And a finish that is still singing minutes after the show is over. This is surprisingly approachable for its youth,” she notes, “but it definitely has the structure to evolve for years to come in the cellar.”

Food pairing: Cabernet-braised short ribs

2004 Domaine Humbert Gevrey-Chambertin Poissenots
2010 August Wine Club Premiere Selection

If you’ve visited the Wayne store and haven’t had the fortune of bumping into Geoff Brooke in the Burgundy aisle, it’s likely because so much of his time and energy is spent behind the scenes, hooking up the web content and helping our French buyer make decisions on when to lock in pricing on the 2009 Bordeaux campaign. But this former primatologist and longtime oenophile really knows his stuff when it comes to the great Burgundies as well. “Brothers Frederic and Emmanuel Humbert are considered rising stars of Burgundy,” he explains. “And this Gevrey Chambertin from the Premier Cru Les Poissenots vineyard really shows why. It displays great black cherry and mocha Pinot fruit with a freshness and brightness that is balanced by middleweight tannin. A wine of restraint and finesse, not power, it makes a great partner to a wide range of dishes from a classic Coq au Vin to a rich pork tenderloin with fruit sauce, or Julia Child’s classic Boeuf Bourgignon.” You can never go wrong with a Julia recipe. And you can never go wrong with a wine selection from Geoff, for that matter! After a few years in the bottle, this wine is beginning to drink beautifully now. Enjoy.

Food pairing: Coq au Vin or Boeuf Bourgignon

Gary's Wine & Marketplace - Madison | Bernardsville | Wayne

1308 Route 23 North • Wayne, NJ 07470 • 973-633-3900
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