29 August: Evangelos Bagias Charites Rose of Pinot Noir 2019

One of the adaptations we made during our Coronavirus isolation was to order wine by mail. Until a few years ago, that very activity would have not been allowed here in Massachusetts. We just recently were able to order from a Washington State vintner we had visited. However restrictive our Commonwealth’s former alcohol shipping laws were, we now can receive wines from several vendors, so with that in mind, we became subscribers to Naked Wines last Spring.

Naked Wines, through their Angels subscription program, connects start-up winemakers with funders - think crowd source funding for small wineries. It’s been a lot of fun to discover some new wines that, based on our flavor profile, were recommended to us. So far, it’s all been spot on. So if anything good can come out of the pandemic, it is that we have discovered a really cool way to support start-up winemakers and taste some incredibly well-made wines.

This weekend, we opened this bottle of rose from Evangelos Bagias from Lodi and, well-chilled, it was a terrific warm summer night wine. Not sweet at all, and on the dry side, it is easy to taste the strong strawberry and raspberry notes, this one was a winner!

30 May F. Stephen Millier Zinfandel 2018

Sometime around the start of the lockdowns we realized that our usual runs to get wine were going to be quite different, so we started looking into joining a wine club as one way to try new things. We had a coupon for something called Naked Wines and after researching this “club” on the Internet, decided it would be a good fit. Naked Wines has a couple of purchase levels, but the one we settled on was to sign up as an “Angel” which is a kind of crowd sourcing for small up and coming winemakers. We liked the idea of supporting new, small businesses and we also wanted to try new things.

To find out more about Naked Wines, visit their website here.

The Millier 2018 Zinfandel from Calaveras County in California (Mark Twain anyone?) is one of the most beautful deep red-purple colors I’ve seen. It starts off with the taste of a perfectly ripe juicy plum and finishes with a clove/pepper comgination. It’s a big, bold red which is exactly what I enjoy. I wouldn’t say I have a well-developed wine palate, but I know what I like when I taste , and this was a definite like.