Sunday School
Learn about and enjoy a different not-so-common wine, cheese and beer every Sunday—at incredibly low prices. School was never this delicious! Limit of one each per guest at the Sunday School price. Please, no returns: if you try it, you
buy it.
Syllabus for Sunday, February 14, 2010
Sunday's Wine
Rosé Brut, Gruet, NV
(Albuquerque, NM)
Are you ready for a surprise this Valentine’s Day? We’re not talking about what’s inside all those little chocolates. Today’s rosé sparkler is from New Mexico! Gruet Winery produces seven sparkling wines and a few still wines in Albuquerque. Frenchman Gilbert Gruet, no relation to Gilbert Grape, started making sparkling wine in France in 1952. While traveling in the 1980’s, he met a group of European winemakers with successful vineyards in New Mexico. A few years later, Gruet relocated with his family to plant some of the highest vineyards in the United States at 4,300 ft. The dramatic temperature variation from day to night, dry air and sandy, loamy soil produce slowly matured grapes free from pesticides. Gruet remains true to French technique and strictly employs the méthode champenoise to make elegant, sophisticated bubblies like today’s dry rosé. Aged for two years, this garnet-hued sparkler has a bright floral bouquet followed by strawberry, raspberry and cherry notes. The next time you’re in the Wild West, put down that sarsaparilla and savor a glass of Gruet. Yee-haw!
Regular Price
$11
Sunday School Price $5½ glass
Sunday's Cheese
Queso Leonora
(Castille-Leon, Spain · Goat-P)
Today we feature a new goat cheese from the Old World. Spain’s farmstead cheese producers have been quietly watching their European colleagues reap the benefits of the blooming artisanal cheese business. International demand for hand-crafted, authentic cheese has been fermenting, but Spain’s smallest producers haven’t jumped into exports like their counterparts in France and Italy. Queso Leonora is a new cheese developed by farmers in León, hence the name, to show the world what they can do. Made from pasteurized goat’s milk, the elongated, brick-like logs are covered in a mottled white and gray mold. Just under the rind, a translucent layer protects the ricotta cheesecake-like interior paste. It’s tart and acidic with hints of lemon and herbs. The white, cakey texture remains incredibly moist, making this cheese nearly luscious and an excellent partner to sparkling wine.
Regular Price
½ $7
Sunday's Beer
Dock Street Sexual Chocolate
(Philadelphia, PA · 8.0%)
You never know what you’ll find in West Philadelphia. A new Tria location? A dynamo of a beer from Dock Street called Sexual Chocolate? Yes, dreams do come true. Sexual Chocolate is brewed roughly in the Russian Imperial Stout style, a higher-alcohol version of regular Stout originally created for Catherine the Great. It is somewhat low in strength for the style—wouldn’t want to weaken one’s libido. The Dock Street boys raised the bar by adding 22 pounds of 100% cocoa Belgian chocolate to the boil. The unsweetened chocolate adds a luscious complexity to the roasted, toasted malts practically jumping out of the glass. It’s smooth, velvety and nearly oily from chocolate. A unique new yeast strain originating from the Eastern Flanders region of Belgium was used to add even more complexity to this brew. German Magnum hop add bitterness and Styrian Golding hops offer earthy notes in the finish, a nice compliment to chocolate and roasted malt. As far as why they named it “Sexual Chocolate,” we’ll let you figure that one out on your own.
Regular Price $5 / 16 oz DRAFT
Sunday School Price $3 / 16 oz DRAFT
