3CUPS Blog
Weekend Wine... 2004 Alessandria Barolo
March 5, 2010 at 1:10 pm by Jay
Gianfranco Alessandria Barolo
Piemonte, Italy
2004
$34.99 ($31.49 this weekend)
The
past has returned, briefly. Recession has granted us a temporary return
to days when high-quality small-grower Barolo was occasionally
available to Italian wine fans for moderate prices. The 20th Century is
back (at least for the weekend), but we get to keep our iPhones and
snowboarding gold medals. What, you guys didn't get one? Maybe it's in
the mail....
Nothing makes me look forward to coming into the
shop as much as the promise of great, affordable Barolo waiting by the
wine counter to greet me. Not as chipper as a Wal-Mart greeter, but
more likely to let you eat all the osso bucco and wild mushrooms on
toast you could possibly want in peace, without giving you a stare of
reproach and concern. Stop by Friday and Saturday to taste this amazing
red. Happy days are here again....
The Man... We have
talented Piedmontese wine grower Mauro Veglio to thank for the
existence of this wine. Veglio was able to convince Gianfranco
Alessandria, his cousin, to begin estate-bottling fruit from his 5.5
hectares of vines. Gianfranco’s father had expanded this estate,
founded by his grandfather in the 1940s, but both men had sold its
fruit to other producers. Alessandria followed his father’s example
until the late 1980s, when he began experimenting with bottling small
quantities of wine. His first major release was in 1991. A 1993
Alessandria Barolo received Tre Bicchiere from Gambero Rosso, the prominent Italian food and wine publication. He was on the right path. The rest is history.
The Estate... Alessandria farms in Monforte, one of the hilltop villages of the Barolo D.O.C.G. This is the heart of the Italian Piedmont, a region considered by many in the wine community to make the best red wine in all of Italy. In 1996 Gianfranco completed an expansion and modernization of the winery’s cellars, upping production to a whopping 35,000 bottles annually.
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Lem does a barista cameo
March 5, 2010 at 1:05 pm by Susannah
Lem
Butler, three-time champion of the Southeast Regional Barista
Competition, will be pulling shots behind the Lion of Florence tomorrow
from 10am-1:30pm. A special one-time menu addition: the ATLien, Lem's
signature beverage that wowed the competition judges. Lem laces a base
of La Forza espresso with honey, and then tops it with an espresso foam
infused with cucumber and ginger. By the way, we forgot to credit Lem in last week's email for the great photo of Karen in competition (this week's photo of Lem was taken by Jason Dominy).
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Friday Fresh @ 3 is Gayo from Sumatra
March 5, 2010 at 1:00 pm by Susannah
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Gayo
Indonesia
Sumatra
$15.99/lb.
The Coffee... Sumatra is one of the classic coffee origins:
deep, velvet-bodied, earthy notes with hints of dry cocoa and spice
swirl in each sip. Sumatran coffees are renowned for their sweetness
and lack of acidity; the perfect afternoon or late night coffee! This
coffee, from the northern Sumatran region of Aceh, is shade-grown by a
cooperative of small producers dedicated to shade-growing on small,
family-owned farms.
The coffees from Gayo are wondrous. Deep,
chocolatey, and velvety, they manage to achieve a very rare thing in
coffee: they are earthy without being dirty, they have a long, sweet
aftertaste that is never cloying, and their sweet, syrupy body make a
strong cup of Gayo like drinking molten dark chocolate.
The Region... Aceh, as the region on the northernmost tip of the island of Sumatra is called, is a fascinating and complicated place. Aceh has been troubled by political instability for years. You might remember Aceh as the place where the tsunami in 2005 had a devastating effect.
The Cooperative... The Gayo cooperative, named after the indigenous Gayo people, is an island of stability in an ocean of chaos. A diverse and democratic group, the Gayo co-op includes Acehnese, Gayo, and Javanese in its numbers, and 20 percent of the producers in the co-op are women! This cooperative, formed in 1997, produces coffees of a unique quality: organic and shade grown, with a level of consistency and quality that is relatively unknown in Sumatra.
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March 3BOTTLES roars in to pair with a lamb
March 3, 2010 at 1:45 pm by Jay
MARCH 3BOTTLES: BORDEAUX, $55
Bordeaux
= Money. Everyone looks to get paid, but the Bordeaux trade is garishly
capitalist in a way that unsettles me. I have a vague and silly notion
about the product I sell, but it's how I feel so you all are stuck with
my naivete. I find wine evocative of people and harmony with the nature
they live in to be essentially worthwhile, and beautiful. It is hard to
view Bordeaux using that romantic notion.
The way that it is traded, and in many instances farmed (organic wine
is a rarity in the region), the structure of Bordeaux estates, and the
type of commerce they feed leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When I buy
the (scant few) bottles of Francois Raveneau Chablis that I will
purchase every vintage, I never discuss or even think about the future
value of this wine, because I am going to drink it. Its quality lies in
bringing an evening of happiness to me and my family, or even maybe
friends, assuming one day I make some. By the way, it's easy to make
friends with Francois Raveneau on your table.... With Bordeaux of a
similar price, the wine is generally discussed in terms of future
dollar value, a logical flaw which has led to the blast off from sanity
of the prices of the top 150 or so Bordeaux wines. They are lost in the
stratosphere of extravagant luxury, a bottle to sip in your penthouse,
admiring your newly acquired Basquiat, considering the merits of
various small Pacific islands to purchase as a location for your next
vacation retreat. They have become hard to justify, and even more
painfully, they have become inaccessible to much of the wine loving
public.
But millions of bottles of good, decent Bordeaux at
sound prices are made every year. Some of this wine is the result of
proud men and women unwilling to abandon the traditional type of wine
that was made in the region for generations. Occasionally, more natural
farming practices are being employed. So there is hope: Bordeaux for
the rest of us is being made, and we are dedicated to finding and
drinking it with the many foods that it complements and improves.
This month's set includes Lex's version of the recipe for Gigot de Sept Heures, or Seven-Hour Lamb. Yum.
Call (919 968 8993) or email me (jmurrie@3cups.net) to reserve your set.
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Wine Flights @ 3... Coastal Wines
March 1, 2010 at 3:00 pm by Jay
March 1 - 6, 2010
Coastal Wines - Flight of 3 - $8
Dom. de la Pepiere Muscadet - $6/gl - $12.99/btl
Caruso Inzolia - $6/gl - $14.99/btl
Valle dell' Acate Frappato - $7/gl - $16.99/btl
Domaine de la Patience Merlot - $6/gl - $12.99/btl
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3CUPS hits the (sweet) spot
February 26, 2010 at 10:35 am by Lex
We believe the retail wine price where you get the best wine for your money is $12-$20….sure, we stock wines less expensive and many which cost more, but we focus on $12-$20. Wine tastes better when you underpay for it and we pride ourselves in finding wines that taste more expensive than they are!
Folks who are shopping for wine often have two things in mind… the color, red or white… and about how much they want to spend. The more confidence customers have in the store's selection, the more they will spend. In retail, conventional wisdom says: what sells is either the cheapest or what is considered the best and therefore is expensive. Most of our wines fall in the middle, between $10 and $25. Here's why…
1. $5.99-$8.99… In the trade this is where most retailers focus, where the bulk of the sales are. This is the magical price point where customers will happily, impulsively pick up a bottle and sometimes a case. Brands like Yellow Tail, Smoking Loon, Toasted Head, and Turning Leaf are all professionally conceived brands where marketing firms concoct "cool" labels and branding to enhance the popularity of these inexpensive choices. If you do the math, and I have, in order to achieve $7.99 on the retail shelf the actual juice, the wine, has to cost almost nothing. Often these wines are made using the popular corporate mantra of "better living through modern chemistry" to achieve the low price point. Wine does not require an ingredient panel or any disclosure about how the grapes made their way to wine. These wines are to wine what particleboard is to wood… they fulfill a function, but the aesthetic leaves a bit to be desired.
2. $35.00 and up… Famous,expensive, and prestigious wines are in demand, highly sought after and collected. They sell well.Not as well as they did in 2007. These wines are famous and collected… Silver Oak Cabernet, Chateau Latour, and Chateau de Beaucastel, to name a few. Because they are popular, they are written up and evaluated in the monthly wine journals and cellared by wine enthusiasts.
3. The "Sweetspot" $12-$20... These are the wines we are
selling and promoting. This is how much you have to pay in order to
experience authentic flavor, the "sweet spot" where you can buy wines
that taste complex and alive. Some folks have called the wines we have
at 3CUPS "invisible" because they fly underneath the radar screen of
the wine press and because of the authentic nature of the farming,
cannot slip under the magical price point of ten bucks! Our wines
include obscure grape varieties like Counoise, Albarino, or Frappato…
or hail from little-acclaimed regions such as Bizkaiko Txakolina.
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Weekend Wine... Chateau Moulin de Tricot
February 26, 2010 at 10:30 am by Jay
Chateau Moulin de Tricot
Haut-Medoc 2006
$27.99, $25.19 this weekend
The wine...
Utterly traditional Bordeaux from a vintage that was a great success at
this estate. This wine is pure Margaux in character, a concentrated
Cabernet-based red that on the palate seems both full and finely tuned.
Consider picking up additional bottles for ageing, as wines of this
traditional class are rare, particularly so at sane prices. I would
recommend it with duck confit, potato gratin, haricots verts. Also
simple grilled meats and stews, roasts and game meats would be a
perfect match.
The estate... Bruno Rey is the proprietor
of Chateau Moulin de Tricot in Margaux, a family estate that has been
passed down generation-to-generation since the 19th century. Rey is a
believer in old-style Margaux wines. His methods are honest and
effective in creating the wines of the character and longevity that
made his homeland famous. High-density vine plantings yield naturally
low yields of flavorful fruit from his vines. He avoids chemical
herbicides, favoring more natural and traditional farming practices.
The grapes are harvested entirely by hand to allow poor-quality
clusters to be left on the vine, and to avoid damage to the pristine
fruit that would occur if they harvested using machines.
read more...
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News from Atlanta, site of the 2010 SERBC
February 26, 2010 at 10:05 am by Susannah
Karen
and all of us at 3CUPS wish to congratulate Lem Butler of Durham's
Counter Culture Coffee. Lem was victorious this past weekend in
Atlanta at the Southeast Regional Barista Competition, taking home a
third trophy to match his previous two. Balance is important on the
mantelpiece. We are currently scheming on how to trick him into a
barista cameo one Saturday soon so you can try his winning signature
beverage, The ATLien - "it's light, it's bright, it's out of sight"
(Lem, per Karen). Watch this space!read more...
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Friday Fresh @ 3 is Shakisso Natural Sun-Dried, Ethiopia
February 26, 2010 at 10:00 am by Susannah
Shakisso Natural Sun-Dried
The Coffee... Shakisso is dried on wooden tables in the sun, resulting dried cherry flavors above dark chocolate and nuts.
The Legend... In the south of Ethiopia, in the region of Sidamo, sits the town of Shakisso. Surrounding Shakisso are mountains covered with forest, so dense that it appears almost black when viewed from above. This mysterious, dense tropical forest has been the source of speculation and wonder for thousands of years. This forest is said to conceal King Solomon's legendary gold mines, mythical animals and satyrs, and fierce warriors. From the forest also comes coffee, growing in the wild just as it has for eons.
read more...
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