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, September 5, 2010

Sunday's Wine

PETIT VERDOT, TRUCHARD VINEYARDS, ’06

Truchard Vineyards is a small, family-owned winery in the Carneros region of the Napa Valley. For 30 years, proprietors Tony and Jo Ann Truchard have been making wine exclusively with estate-grown fruit. Doing so allows them to sustain a connection between the land and the winemaking process and maintain complete control from vine to bottle. Across 400 acres they grow the iconic grapes you’d expect in Napa, but the Truchards also plant less common varietals. Some of the twelve varieties they grow are sold to neighboring wineries, but they keep the best for their own estate creations. Today we have Petit Verdot, one of the five main varieties from Bordeaux, where it’s primarily used as a blending grape to darken the color and beef up the body of the regional red wines. Petit Verdot ripens late, which produces a thick-skinned grape chock full o’ tannins and perfume. Today’s single varietal example showcases a dark purple hue replete with violet, blueberry and ripe plum character. Hints of cedar and tobacco along with nuances of vanilla bean round out the smooth palate. A long finish of fine fruit and spice confirms that Petit Verdot can stand boldly, beautifully on its own.

GLEANN OIR

Creativity, handcraftsmanship, and tradition: these are a few of our favorite things. We find these qualities in today’s Irish farmhouse cheese, Gleann Oir. Loosely based on the crumbly cow’s milk Caerphilly of Wales, the Maher family creates a pasteurized goat’s milk interpretation in the Gleann Oir. The Maher family has been specializing in handcrafting beautifully balanced farmhouse cheeses for four generations. From the Cooleeny Farm in the heart of Ireland’s Golden Vale, their herd of goats nibbles on lush, green pastures. Cave aging gives this cheese a natural rind and cellar-aroma, which calms the natural citrus tang of the goat’s milk and envelops a savory pastoral flavor. Semi-hard, sweet, and nutty, this true Irish farmstead original is an approachable one-of-a-kind. It is extremely limited, so enjoy the heritage of this genuine artisan cheese here before it’s gone.

Sunday's Beer

UNIBROUE ÉPHÉMÈRE

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, consider this your daily dose. Brewed with apple must, coriander, and curacao, the Éphémère gives a unique spin on the traditional Belgian Wit (white) ale. Quebec-based brewery Unibroue, known for breaking traditional style barriers, has been brewing Belgian-inspired beers since the early ’90s. Their not-so-ephemeral Éphémère is part of a series of beers featuring seasonal fruit in a crisp, lightly spiced white ale. Pouring a gold, hazy hue, the beer has nostalgia-inducing aromas of sweetly spiced old-fashioned apple pie. With slight bitter and sour green apple flavors, the Éphémère is almost cider-like, making it a delicious pairing for goat, bloomy rind, or an aged cheddar cheese, and a refreshing farewell-to-summer ale.