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Taste Five Delicious Treats With Plenty Of History Behind Them

Cost: Free

Friday's your day to come taste some great wines at CBC; only one tasting this week as we're closed on Saturday, July 4, for Independence Day. Friday's free tasting from 3-7pm features five wines with historical back-stories. Some pretty recent, others reaching back to the USA's founding. All well worth getting to know. You'll sample:

Muri-Gries Lagrein Kretzer Alto Adige 2025 - In the 19th Century, the then Austrian population of now Italy's Alto Adige region wanted a good, everyday, red table wine. But their Lagrein grape threw off a lot of tannin and they didn't then know how to ripen it through that. So once the fermentation had run a day or so, they reached into the vat with straw mats - called Kretzer - to scoop out the grape skins and seeds before the wine got too strong. Lagrein specialist Muri-Greis makes this dark rose/light red in that tradition. And it's delicious!

Dalia Pinot Grigio Delle Venezie 2025 - In the late 1950s, Italian Count Gaetano Marzotto wanted to make a delicious, fresh, crisp white wine from his home in northwest Italy, the region now called Venezie. The main white grape of the region was actually pink Pinot Grigio, and his neighbors all made it like a red wine on the skins and with a touch of color. He tried pressing before fermentation - and his Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio changed the world of Italian white wine. This is a great value take on that style, crisp, bright, dry and delicious.

Ch Des Graves Du Tich Sainte Croix du Mont 2018 - Sure, Burgundy got started earlier, but Bordeaux is the region that created the international wine trade we know today. And until the 1950s, almost half of all Bordeaux made was white and half of that Semillon! This lovely, honeyed, dry, white celebrates that history in a 100% Semillon dry white from a southern corner of Bordeaux more famous today for sweet wines. The extra time in bottle gives is terrific complexity and depth.

Admire by Dan Kosta Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 2023 - While the movie Sideways kicked off the California Pinot Noir boom in 2004, it was the anointing of Kosta Browne Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 2009 as Wine Spectator's "Wine of the Year" in 2011 that really kicked things into high gear. Now Dan Kosta is working on a smaller project, and this Wine Spectator 92 point gem shows off his ability to create delicious Pinot at a sub-$30 price-point.

The Rare Wine Co. Independence Day Madeira Special Reserve - Madeira was the most popular wine in the 13 Colonies and early USA, in large part because it was one of the few wines that could survive travel to North America from Europe. Over the past few years, Madeira champion and Rare Wine Co. founder Mannie Berk and fellow Madeira historian, Aaron Nix-Gomez have deeply researched the style and composition of the Madeira commonly drunk in 1770s Pennsylvania. And now winemaker Ricardo Freitas of Barbieto crated this blend to capture that for us to enjoy and savor as we toast America 250.

As always all the wines you'll taste are on sale and you can enjoy best six-bottle savings on a mix/match basis. So come get ready for your July 4 by dipping into wine history - and finding some wines you'll want to enjoy as you make new history in the months to come!

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