Partnered post
Over the years I’ve discovered that drinks remind people of many different things.
It could be a memorable meal they’ve had with a loved one. It could be a faraway country they were dying to visit but were exploring through a glass of wine (for the meantime). Maybe it’s a particular food they knew paired well with the beverage they were having (me + a cold ochoko of sake = wanting a sliver of fatty tuna sashimi).
What I never thought of – but made sense – involved traveling to a particular moment in time, one drink at a time.
It seems like a stretch, but the thing about wine is that it’s one of the very few drinks on earth whose year of harvest (known in wine speak as vintage) matters. To put it simply, vintage matters because the overall conditions upon the grapes’ harvest greatly influences the style of wine. A rainy vintage will likely produce a wine that isn’t as flavorful as a drier one. A particularly hot vintage will likely produce a wine that has high levels of alcohol.
This is why despite the truth of a wine being more expensive the older it is, factoring in vintage will still matter… which explains why a 1981 bottle of the legendary Château Petrus is less expensive than its much-lauded 1982 version. In fact, using this explanation, an experienced wine professional could guess a wine’s vintage.
I digress (and clearly got a little nerdy). Circling back to the original point, the 22nd Grand Wine Experience allowed me to recall a few timestamps of my own through their featured labels… Over 1,000 wine, sake, and spirits should be more than enough to revisit anybody’s memories (or obliterate them if one isn’t careful!). Here are some of mine:
The Drink: Delamain XO Cognac
Delamain is a cognac producer from Jarnac and is one of the oldest Cognac houses, in existence since 1824. They only produce XO and above cognacs from the Grande Champagne region. It smelled like a beautiful myriad of citrus, forest, honey, preserved fruits and had a beautiful savory flavor profile which I thought made it interestingly good with Asian food.
Timestamp: 2009. Incidentally one of my favorite former colleagues from DLS-CSB SHRIM’s Beverage Department, Mr. Paul Ceron, was manning the booth… which brought me back to the wonders (and occasional horrors) of teaching in a college capacity. I started my faculty career pretty young back in 2009, which was a challenge given that my students were close to my age at the time… and I lacked the maturity (which implies a certain level of… formidability?). Admittedly, people like Mr. Ceron made my time much more fun and memorable, and I’m grateful to him (and a lot of my former colleagues) for everything I’ve learned.
The Drink: Bollinger Special Cuvée
This legendary Champagne house produces some of the finest, most famous vintage and non-vintage* Champagne on earth. Their non-vintage, the Special Cuvée, is a crisp, golden sparkling wine comprised of mostly Pinot Noir, with a smaller percentage of Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier (the three classic Champagne grapes). It’s got a bit of complexity on the nose and flavors of pear, bread, and spice.
Timestamp: 2021. The James Bond film No Time To Die was released on this year and is one of three James Bond movies that got 007 drinking champagne instead of his signature martini (besides 1979’s Moonraker and 1956’s Diamonds Are Forever with that killer Shirley Bassey number – I am clearly a Bond geek). 2021 was a memorable year for me… I bonded with my father for the first time in ages halfway around the world during the height of the pandemic, lost him a few months later, and lost my mother a few months after that. I think champagne is a fitting drink for these memories in that life is always meant to be celebrated.
The Drink: Champagne Marguet
Okay, so I couldn’t decide which one to feature here because both wines were so good. The champagne house boasts of being biodynamic** , are committed to ecology, and employ horses to work their soil. The Yuman is a 2020 vintage and was a beautifully creamy Chardonnay, while the Shaman of the same vintage was an incredibly aromatic champagne that I was tempted to sniff all night long.
Timestamp: 2015. It was my very first trip to Champagne and I made a lot of core memories there… Like going to a couple of champagne houses including my alma mater’s founder’s family’s (animo!), having my first Bouzy (I’ve only ever read about it up to that point), exploring the Reims Cathedral, and discovering that churches in certain parts of champagne are closed on Sundays.
The Drink: Louis Latour Chablis 2024
Confession: It takes a lot (and I mean a lot) to get my evening’s date, my husband Chad, to gravitate towards a Chardonnay (more on that later). This gorgeous, citrusy, crisp, and mineral Chablis really hit the spot for him. Louis Latour is typically associated with Aloxe-Corton, an acclaimed AOC in Burgundy producing stonking Pinot noir and Chardonnay wines.
Timestamp: 2012. Chad and I got married in mid-December 2011, and as it was late in the year (plus we had family over), we decided to postpone our proper honeymoon to the year after (it didn’t stop us from spending a few days in Shanghai immediately after the wedding though). I was in the middle of studying for my WSET certification exam and we decided to segue to Burgundy for our first vineyard experience (ambitious, I know… Who chooses one of the more complicated appellations for their first vineyard trip). We learned a lot in Burgundy, including vintages (my birth year of 1982 is legendary for right bank Bordeaux, while Chad’s 1979 produced some of the finest red Burgundies) and cellaring. I also had Chad taste his very first Chardonnay, and Aloxe-Corton… which spoiled his palate for the expensive stuff forever. We also had misadventures with a Citroën and met the amazing Philippe Renaud of Mon Millésime, who showed us his collection of really old wines. I have it on good authority that the good people of Philippine Wine Merchants is looking to bring in the Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton, so fingers crossed!
The Drink: Haart to Heart Mosel Riesling 2021
A very cute name with a rich wine producing history. The estate of Weingut Reinhold Haart lies a few meters from the renowned Mosel River, has been producing wine since 1337, and has stayed with the Haart family ever since. Haart to Heart Mosel is made from 100% Riesling and is in the off-dry style (which I prefer over the sweeter Riesling styles). It’s heady with smells that reminded Chad of freshly opened cans of tennis balls (like the tennis geek he is), flavors of tropical and stone fruits, plus a minerality and acidity that balances the wine.
Timestamp: 2016. Christmas in Munich. After much research, we’ve found documentation that I am part German (with a smattering of French, Belgian, Danish, Spanish, Mormon American, and Dabawenya), which probably explains so much of how I was raised and the fact that I felt so at home in Munich. I remember my part Italian husband (still Chad, for those keeping score) teasing me that his people’s food is much better than mine, how even closing the Christmas market in Marienplatz was so German they shut everything down at 12 noon on the dot… We even took a side trip to Dachau, a sobering reminder on how depraved humanity can get (Merry Christmas indeed). We haven’t been to Mosel yet, but we are currently making plans to visit.
The Drink: Frescobaldi Tenuta Perano Chianti Classico 2020 and Frescobaldi Ripe Al Convento di CastelGiocondo Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2007
Again, I couldn’t decide which one I liked more. The producer, Frescobaldi, has been producing wines since 1300. Tenuta Perano Chianti Classico is made from the historical geographical limitations of Chianti and is made of a minimum of 85% Sangiovese (plus local grapes), and has notes and flavors of red fruits, sour cherries, raspberries, and that distinctive “balsamic” profile Chef Paolo Nesi talks about. The Brunello di Montalcino*** (please don’t make me type the whole name of the wine again) is a beautifully complex wine reminiscent of roses, violets (my personal indicator that a wine is made from Sangiovese), and black fruits.
Timestamp: 2012. Honeymoon part 2. We were young, adventurous, and felt invincible enough to drive from Paris to Rome via Dijon (hence the Burgundy stopover), Grenoble, Nice, Monaco (where we “accidentally” watched the F1 race while visiting Grace Kelly’s grave), Pisa, and Tuscany. Our first glimpse of the Italian countryside was that of so much warmth, hospitality, great food (we literally were plied with massive amounts of food “good for one person” in every vineyard stop, none of which we had appointments to), and so much beauty. We stayed in a cottage in the middle of the woods in Castellina di Chianti, got woken up by sounds of, ehrm… a couple being rather amorous… Then got the shock of our lives when we found out the said couple was old enough to be our nonno and nonna (shivers).
The Drink: Carmin de Peumo
If one must talk about the benchmark for high quality, borderline mythical Carménère, one needs not to look beyond Concha Y Toro’s Carmin de Peumo. This multi-awarded wine was produced in the Peumo Vineyard D.O. of the Cachapoal region in Chile. It’s a deep, complex wine with aromatic notes of black fruits, spice and minerality, and is heavily bodied.
Timestamp: 2014. A solo trip to Chile. Here’s the thing: I started this website with no plans of taking it seriously… until people started doing just that. I just wanted an avenue to be able to talk about wine without getting too snobby or academic but still keeping the wine facts sound (hence I still research the living daylights out of each article to this day). It got picked up by decision makers that be from the Chilean Embassy and I found myself halfway around the world, falling in love with the beauty of their vineyards, their wine, their food, and their people. Having seen the Pacific Ocean from the other side of the world in Valparaiso, riding Robertito the horse through rivers, staying in a hotel that was once upon a time a train station, and crossing a super highway to get another maleta so I can get the 9 bottles of wine home is such a core memory.
The Drink: Brand’s Laira Coonawarra One Seven One Cabernet Sauvignon 2018
Coonawarra is Australia’s land of quality Cabernet Sauvignon. Brand’s Laira has been in existence since 1893 and has been producing wine since 1966, with their flagship One Seven One having been awarded Best Coonawarra Cabernet in the International Wine Challenge in 2017. We were shown a few wines from the label but I gravitated towards this rich, velvety Cabernet Sauvignon that had flavors of cassis, dark fruits, and vanilla.
Timestamp: 2017. Sydney. I know, it’s not Coonawarra, but it was my first time in Australia, and I had access to so much good Australian wine while I was there. I even joined a Hunter Valley tour and discovered how foggy it got (and how it played a factor in influencing Hunter Valley’s unique style of Shiraz). I even learned about sparkling Shiraz and made memories by “accidentally” catching Adele in concert at the ANZ Stadium.
The Drink: Francis Coppola Diamond Collection Claret 2021
I love old movies. I can talk to anybody about anything from old Mary Pickford films, obscure old black and white holiday films, Audrey Hepburn classics, easter eggs from Wizard of Oz, Gene Kelly’s insane dance numbers…. Which is why the fact that Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (arguably one of cinema history’s classics) made me gravitate towards the wine (trivia: Yes, the acclaimed filmmaker founded the winery but has sold it in 2021… He currently owns the historical Inglenook Winery and Domaine de Broglie). Claret is the English term for the medieval Bordeaux wine Clairet. While Clairet is typically associated with a paler red wine (which can classify as a dark rosé), darker Claret was also produced by pressing the remaining skins. The Diamond Collection claret is closer to the latter style, with its dark, luscious, aromatic characteristics.
Timestamp: 2015. It was my first trip to see Chad’s sister in San Francisco, whose best friend treated us to a rather memorable trip to Napa. I also hung out with my fellow wino, Yorkie mom, and Audrey Hepburn lover, S. It was our last Christmas together, and it was made so memorable with a ton of food, wine, laughter, and Kate Spade.
The Drinks: Sake
I will need to break this down by talking about my top three favorite sake for the evening.
Daishichi Junmai Kimoto Classic
Made from Yamada Nishiki rice (top quality rice for making sake), the brewery’s goal is to make “high-end Junmai sake,” the antithesis of people’s preconceived notion that Junmai isn’t as good as Junmai Ginjo or Junmai Daiginjo (sake with a higher polish ratio). The brewery’s goal was also to create sake to “enhance the enjoyment of food,” making a sake that is richer in style and can pair with flavorful beef shabu-shabu or grilled beef.
Daishichi Minowamon Junmai Daiginjo
Coming from the same brewery, this gentle, mellow textured sake with elegant aromas has won gold awards for both the Junmai and Ginjo categories. It’s an interesting sake in that it can pair with French food such as scallops à la meunière, and even roast duck.
Tatsuriki Junmai Daiginjo Komenosasayaki Akitsu
I love the history of the brewery (and its affinity with dragons). It’s located in the same area where the famous Himeji Castle is in the Hyogo Prefecture. Hyogo is famous in the sake world for producing the highest quality of Yamada Nishiki rice, which was evident in this sake’s delicate aromas and mellow taste.
Timestamp: 2019. The last Christmas before life as we knew it changed because of the pandemic. We spent the holidays in Japan and quite frankly, prior to that trip I had absolutely zero interest in sake. I decided to give sake a try in a sashimi restaurant Chad and I went to and… Magic. I know a few people in my circles who insist that they couldn’t tell one sake apart from the other but… maybe it’s that insane quirk I have of likely being a bloodhound in a past life, but I could. The nuances are so minute that it takes effort, but I think that’s what appealed (and continues to appeal) to me. I ended up really nerding out and took a Sake certification during the pandemic, and have since loved every little thing about it (save for the translations because hot dang, even my older Japanese friends have a hard time with the kanji!). Today it may be an enjoyable intellectual and organoleptic exercise for me, but I will always remember singing Into The Unknown in the middle of Akihabara during winter after copious amounts of sake, having sake in a conveyor sushi restaurant right outside Sanrio Puroland (after an emotional encounter with my childhood hero Hello Kitty), traveling via bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto, eating our body’s weight in ramen, Kobe beef, and sashimi… Pure, unadulterated joy.
*Non-vintage champagne is a blend of champagnes from different vintages. Champagne houses typically only produce vintage champagne on good harvest years, making them rarer, better in terms of quality, and more expensive.
**Uses organic farming, biodynamic agriculture, and follows a calendar and bases farming decisions from astrological configurations… It initially sounds like a bunch of hokum but the wines I’ve had over the years employing this method do have an interesting, mostly richer complexity.
***Brunello di Montalcino by law is made from 100% Sangiovese. Montalcino (the area) used to call Sangiovese by the name of Brunello, hence the etymology.
Special Thanks to Raymond, Ronnie, and Rea, and the fabulous Ms. Dawn Ignacio
Wines and Sake featured are available (subject to availability) on https://ralphs.com.ph/ or a nearby Ralph’s Store
Photos by Chad Sotelo
