I’ve been collecting some scraps of wine news over the past month, so I figured it was time to pour a glass of knowledge to share with y’all. First up is the announcement of the Nashville Wine Auction’s 10th annual edition of their Pairings fundraiser coming up the weekend of Feb. 24-26.
Slightly less formal than the summer l'Eté du Vin fundraiser, this will be the Nashville Wine Auction’s first major event since Loren Chumley took over from longtime organization president and CEO Holly Whaley. Chumley has been a longtime board member of the organization and will continue to lead NWA’s efforts to raise money to support local cancer-related charitable efforts.
The Pairings weekend is divided into three parts, kicking off with private vintner dinners hosted in private homes around town on Thursday, Feb. 24. Friday night is the Wine Up! Party at City Winery, always a festive event featuring 27 West Coast wineries, a silent auction and small bites from the kitchen. On Saturday night, patrons will return to City Winery for the main event, the five-course Pairings gourmet wine dinner and live auction.
If you want to be a part of the fun, make your reservations at the event website.
In other wine news, there’s been a lot of buzz about the opening of the huge Total Wine superstore in Brentwood and how cheap their prices are. This isn’t the time or space to talk about whether a new player is good or bad for the local wine and spirits environment, but they do indeed stack a metric crapton of cheap wines at Total Wine, many of them private label direct-from-the-winery brands.
And hey, I get it, saving a few bucks per bottle multiplied by the number of extra bottles you might be drinking as Omicron drives us back indoors can add up. But there are plenty of good, affordable wines that you can find at your local favorite wine shop or grocery, especially if you reach out to store staff for advice. Personally, anything I can do to avoid fighting Brentwood traffic is worth a few bucks a bottle.
With that in mind, here are two bargain wines that I have had the chance to sample lately. First up is the 2020 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from Brancott Estate. New Zealand sauv blancs tend to share strong flavor elements of grapefruit and fresh green pepper, and this Brancott Estate definitely exhibits the peppery tropical nuances. But for about $10 a bottle, it’s more complex than expected with floral notes and sweeter aromas that offer up a longer finish than most bargain bottles offer. If you’re thinking of adding more seafood to your diet in 2022, this should be a go-to pairing to serve with shellfish or flaky fish like cod or snapper.
On the red side of the spectrum, I recently received a review bottle from I winery that I’m already very familiar with, Campo Viejo in Spain. I’m a fan of their affordable tempranillos and garnachas grown in the middle of Spain’s Rioja region. I like those grapes because I feel like they are among the most versatile everyday (well, everynight) wines that go with the broadest variety of foods.
Also in the $10 to $15 a bottle range, Campo Viejo’s wines offer the acidic backbone of a Chianti that make them a fine alternative choice for pizza or pasta with red sauce. Relatively uncomplicated, they can also complement everything from chicken wings to heavier seafood dishes. Even the blends aren’t too sweet, something that many California blends just can’t seem to avoid, so I serve Campo Viejo with steak without worrying that the wine will be too cloying for the meat. Then I spend the extra few bucks I save on the wine to buy better meat. It’s a win-win.
