Teikoku Tasting Wrap-Up & Azie / BinEndsWine.com Live Tasting Event!

I recently had the pleasure of attending a wine/plate pairing at the fabulous Teikoku restaurant in PA. The food, as always, was stellar (I suppose that's par for the course for anything prepared by Iron Chef Takao Iinuma).

The wines (selected and poured by wine educator, Matthew Esser from Shiffrin Selections and wine educator and consultant, Heather Wright from Cellar Door Imports, both personal friends) were fine examples of vino that matches up perfectly with summer fare. My 'mini-reviews' of the wines are below - I recommend any of these if you're looking for great summer wines that won't break the bank:

07 Mar y Tierra Carmenere (Curico Valley, Chile): Green peppercorns & black fruit. Easy on the tannins & the wallet. Killer nose for the $.
NV Dr. Konstantin Frank Salmon Run Riesling (NY): A pear-infused steel sandwich. Won't blow your mind. But at this price it doesn't have to.
07 Finca la Linda Torrontes (Argentina): Like a small and thoughtful bouquet of flowers. Given to you lovingly in a vase of grain alcohol.

Next up, I've got two more tasting events that I should probably be plugging so here goes...:


1) There's a Sake Tasting taking event tomorrow (July 15) on the deck at Azie's in Media, PA. I don't know much about sake so this is going to be one of my inaugural (a.k.a trial-by-fire) journeys into the heart of all things sake. 6:30-8:30PM, $30 per person. The menu:

Kumamoto Oysters & Harushika Tokimeki Sparkling
Gobuo Quick Fry & Bishonen "Beautiful Boy" Ginjo
Sushi "Big Eye" tuna, hamachi and bass & Ohyama "Big Mountain" Junmai

Pork belly "Kakuni" stew &Taiheizan Tenko Daiginjo

Bonus!

2) BinEndsWine.com will be holding their monthly "twitter taste live" on July 17 at 7PM ET. This month's installment will feature Spanish wines selected by European Cellars' Solomon. Eric will join Ryan & Gabriella Opaz of Catavino.net live via twitter.com to taste and discuss the wines. Also taking part via twitter.com will be yours truly. Here's the skinny on how to follow the action on twitter.com:

• Get an account on twitter (as if a cool person like you didn't have one already!).
• Follow BinEndsWine's twitter feed.
• Follow my twitter feed.
• Login at 7PM ET on the 17th and enjoy the ride!

And as for the wine lineup (which is lookin' mighty tasty!):

• Pazo de Monterrey Monterrei 2006
• Pazo de Senorans Albarino 2007
• Rafael Palacios Louro do Bolo Godello 2006
• Burgans Bierzo "Cuatros Pasos" 2005
• Bodegas Mustiguillo "Mestizajes" 2005
• Castano Yecla "Solanera" 2005

Hope to see you on twitter!

Cheers!