Malbec World Day is celebrated annually on April 17th. With Passover and Easter and other events going on, this variety’s special day was set aside, temporarily, at the shop. In the world of “better late than never,” we will be celebrating Malbec Word Day this coming Friday and Saturday, in-store, and will be featuring three Malbecs for your tasting enjoyment. To round out the tasting with a white wine, we will have Argentinian Malbec’s dear friend, Torrontés.

The 1974 tune by Mac Davis, called “Stop and Smell the Roses,” has been hijacked by City Vino for our themed rosé tasting this weekend, which shall now be known as Stop and Smell the Rosés. Of course, our City Vino staff were not even a twinkle in our parent’s eyes in 1974 , so this song was played for us as an “oldie” in the 1990s, during our formative years . That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.

This week’s tasting at City Vino features wines where there wasn’t really a particular theme in mind. I considered calling it a “Variety of Varieties,” until I realized that one of the wines was technically a blend of 85 percent of one grape, and 15 percent another. Though many places around the world, legally, the 85 percent means it can be labelled as the predominant grape variety without mentioning the secondary grape at all, but let’s stick to the non-themed theme, shall we?

When we think of certain grapes, we may immediately think of the specific country, region, or specific city, and it is often the place where the grape originated or first attained notoriety. The Albariño grape may lead you to think of Northwest Spain’s Rias Baixas region, and Pinot Noir may bring you to Burgundy, in France. If you shop wine store shelves, often you may see the name of a familiar grape, but from a place far away from the grape’s origins.
This week City Vino’s tasting will feature wines made with the grapes that will perhaps lead you to say (or at least think) “I didn’t know they grew that there.”