I am so excited jumping aboard with Scott Maybaum and the Wine Country crew, an ever-growing team of Beverage Industry pros who are always looking for new ways to serve their customers. I've been on a dual-career track for the last 20 years, both as a Classically-trained Tenor and Theatre Actor and as a Wine Buyer and Educator...During that time, after innumerable special event presentations, I became known as "The Singing Wineguy" both for my passionate appreciation of wine and gregarious urge to share great music and culture with many audiences. I hope to bring my positive energy to the Wine Country stores and identify ways to help develop your personal ongoing wine experience. I'll be creating fun tasting and culturally-minded events both in our stores and at near-store locations, whether at a local museum or concert hall, or at an outdoor festival.
I will continue to seek out wines from America and around the world that relate to both the American palate and to Americans' desire for high quality, well-defined grape varietal character, and of course at a reasonable price. Make sure to stop and introduce yourself at one of our tasting events, whether in a store or around town!
Cheers!
Jon, The Singing Wineguy
Wine Feature
Scott Maybaum and I recently sat down to lunch with Tony Apostolakos of Masi Wines, famous in Veneto for their valpolicello and amarone. We were excited to learn a lot more about these wines and about how Masi's innovative techniques have not only helped them create delicious wines, but also have changed these traditional styles for the better! Most people believe that amarone is produced from long-dried or "raisin" grapes, giving it the dense flavor and higher residual sugar to which we're accustomed. As we learned from Tony, "Once a Raisin, Always a Raisin!"... there is no juice left to ferment, and what you are able to squeeze may end up tasting slightly burnt, slightly oxidized, or overly earthy. Masi's innovative approach involves lightly-drying the harvested fruit under shelter, not in the sun, and governing the length of that process by a set percentage of water-weight loss, not the visual withering of the skins. When the grapes lose a bit of water, the concentration of fruit flavor and sugar is heightened, lending the opportunity to produce a very clean-tasting, yet more complex wine with a fuller body and denser flavor profile.
Here's what we liked the best, and they're in stock at Wine Country
Bergenfield and South Plainfield:
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