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| Wine 101 and Piedmont Wine Imports hosted wines from Tuscany. |
By Dathan Kazsuk | March 11, 2013
Twitter: @TriangleAT | Facebook: Triangle Around Town | Instagram: @trianglearoundtown
Some of you might know this already, but Wine 101 in Wake Forest is pretty much my home away from home. My wife and I enjoy the atmosphere at this wine and beer shop, and are good friends with store owner Joe O’Keefe. Shoot, Joe even calls my wife “sis,” and, no, they aren’t related.
On March 7, we stopped in again for a wine tasting featuring Piedmont Wine Imports’ Jay Murrie. The last time Jay was at the store he poured a selection of wines from the Piemonte region of Italy. This time he was back with wines from the Tuscany region of Italy.
If you know, of have met Jay, you know he can be a great storyteller when he talks about all the different wineries he’s visited overseas. From driving a compact car up a steep and dangerous mountain pass to trying to get 60-bottles of wines through customs, Jay can paint a great picture.
This time Jay brought the party of around 35 people 7 great wines to sample. The selection consisted of 2 whites and 5 reds. Each wine had a great story about the people involved in making the wine, or how that winery operates its “organic” vineyard.
Jay will be the first to tell you that drinking wine is a “social activity,” but I just wished some of the attendees at the tasting would have not listened to that advice. Around half way through the tasting, a handful of guests might have enjoyed the wine a little too much, and started to become less connected with Jay’s stories and more so their own little conversations. It was actually difficult to hear Jay speak from the back of the room at times.
Nonetheless, we enjoyed the organic wines of Italy. We ended up buying 4 bottles that night, and will be back again next time Jay visits Wine 101.
Below are the 7 wines we tried that evening.
Pietralta Bianco Toscano
Il Corzanello Toscana Bianco 2011
Chianti Montalbano
Ipogeo Fattoria Castellina
Il Corzanello Toscana Rosso 2011
Terre di Corzano Chianti 2009
Pietralta Chianti