Wine & Words

A few months ago I found a site on the Internet called YumYuk.com. It’s about the fact that different people have different numbers of taste buds and therefore prefer different kinds of tastes. They’ve applied this notion to wine tasting, dividing people into four groups, according to the types of taste they will probably like in wine.

"In July, the month we celebrate Independence and all things American, I wanted to give a tour of a number of off-beat and little known American wine regions. The problem is that it’s just way hard to get those wines down to our stores. So, with the exception of the fine sparkling Brut from New Mexico’s Gruet family, I’ve had to settle for the well-known winemaking areas of California and the Pacific Northwest. Because of the cooler climate, most of the white wines come from Oregon and Washington, while the reds hail from the well-known California appellations. Still, these are excellent wines and will make a fine addition to your celebration of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

It is indeed a pleasure to travel west on I-40, through the bustling Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle, past Greensboro, past Winston-Salem onto Highway 421 north and into the Yadkin Valley wine country. A couple of weeks ago, Yvonne and I caravanned with Washington Wine & Gourmet store manager Mary Mehlich and her husband Mark. We followed the familiar "bunch of grapes" directional signs off the highway and through the rolling farmland hills surrounding the Yadkin River valley. It was a beautiful early spring day, with little colts and calves (Chef Yvonne saw the latter as "veals") frolicking in the achingly green fields. We renewed old friendships, made some new ones and brought back some great Carolina wines.

Spring is a time for newness and freshness. So I've decided to offer as Featured Wines a selection of the new, the fresh, and the beautiful.