Brewery Visit

For this winery visit, I decided to do something entirely different and visit a brewery. And, not just any brewery, the brewery of Lefty's Main Street Grille. I am a loyal employee of Lefty's (catch me there literally any time any day of the week). Lefty's is a particularly cool restaurant in Blacksburg because we brew our own beer in house. Our head beer brewer, Evan, is there every day always working on something new. Every few weeks we will have a few new beers on the menu.

The equipment of brewing the beer at Lefty's:

 The pictures I included are all the machinery we use to create our beer. I will do my best to explain the process that Evan explained to me. Like all beer, we create our beer by steeping wheat in a big chamber (the one with the tiny open door). After that, our brewer scrapes out the wheat and disposes of it. Next, what is steeped from the wheat is now ready to be fermented with yeast. During this process, hops can be added or anything else that will make the beer is its own individual taste.

There's a large assortment of beers at Lefty's and one that can satisfy any palette. I can't really include a picture of me drinking the beers, as it's my place of work, but I've tried them all because I have to serve and recommend them and they're all very good and uniquely Lefty's. The Tommy Dinkus is a light, easy drinking beer, similar to a domestic but much higher class. The Pickle Rick takes a few tastes to warm up to, and honestly changes with the taste and aroma of the pickle. The Brindle brown is a little twist on a stout beer, thick but very satisfying and hearty.

This is something a little different than what the assignment asks for, but I hope it fulfills the requirements. Working at Lefty's has really improved my beer knowledge, as this class has improved my knowledge of wine.

Vintage Cellar Oliver Apple Pie

Name: Oliver Apple Pie
Variety: Apple Wine
Region: Bloomington, Indiana
 Country: USA
Year: N/A
Price: $14

Shop Review: You'll imagine they spent hours crushing and pressing fresh-baked pies -- you're almost right! For this seasonal wine, they painstakingly perfected the balance of tart, crisp, fresh apple, and creamy sweet vanilla. Oliver Apple Pie wine features fresh-pressed, 100% apple wine.

My Review: I loved this wine, It actually tasted just like apple pie but was not at all overwhelming. It is very sweet but so enjoyable to drink. I bought a bottle of this wine for myself. This was my favorite wine in the tasting and a nice surprise. 


 Also here is me and my roommate Kinzie proving our existence at the vintage cellar after I got off work. 

Vintage Cellar Hawk Crest

Name: Hawk Crest
Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon (Red)
Region: Lake County, California
Year: 2008
Price: $25

Shop Review: From Stag's Leap winery, this is textbook California Cabernet Sauvignon with dark fruit, red cherry and black pepper spice notes. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied with inviting blueberry pie and cocoa flavors. Enjoy this wine with grilled rib eye steak with herb butter, braised beef short ribs, or black-pepper-crusted ahi tuna.

My Review: This wine had a fruity aroma but I don't think it tasted as good as it smelled. It was very full in the body which is not my favorite, and not a very easily drinkable wine. I guess I would agree that it might pair well with meet, but overall, this was difficult on my palette. 

Vintage Cellar Terra Del Giglo

Name: Terra Del Giglo

Variety: Red 

Year: 2013

Price: $12 

Region: Tuscany, Italy 

Shop Review: 

This wine's shy nose eventually reveals black-skinned fruit and a whiff of baking spice, while the palate offers straightforward plum and clove flavors. It's easy drinking and has mellow tannis.

My Review: I don't like red wines very much, and this wine really was no exception. 

Objectively, this was a medium-bodied red wine that had medium sweetness. It was pretty fruity for a red wine. 

 

Vintage Cellar Thorn-Clark

Name: Thorn-Clark Mount Crawford
Variety: White (Chardonnay)
Year: 2013
Region: Eden Valley, Australia
Price: $15
Shop Review: Full, lush tropical fruit dominates this wine’s aromas and flavors. Complex and heady on the palate.

My Review: I liked this chardonnay a lot better than the pinot. It is a drinkable wine, which is really enjoyable. It is definitely fuller than the pinot, which is not what I usually enjoy, but this really wasn't that bad. I feel that it would really compliment some of the cheese we had at the wine and cheese tasting. 

Vintage Cellar Villa Pozzi

Name: Villa Pozzi
Variety: White (Pinot Grigio)
Year: 2015
Region: Sicily, Italy
Price: $11
Shop Review: Clear to light straw colored, this Pinot Grigio exhibits soft aromatic flavors of perfumed rose and soft honeysuckle that are attractive and indicative of the refreshing and rounded fruit style. The structure of this wine is well balanced and clean, with depth of fruit showing through and some flavors that are derived from the selected yeasts used in controlled temperature fermentation. Wonderfully complimented by a firm and crisp acidic finish.

My Review: I didn't really enjoy this pinot grigio as much as I thought I would. I feel like I can usually tell by the color, and this wine was light enough in color, so I was expecting to like it. The smell is definitely perfumey as the shop review describes, which is kind of a weird thing to drink,
in my opinion. I just didn't personally like it and won't be drinking it again. It was a light wine but weirdly oily in my opinion.

Wine and Cheese Pairing (March 25th Grading Period)

For the Wine and Cheese Pairing blog, my roommates and I decided to go to....where else but White Barrel in Blacksburg. I was pretty excited for this because I like cheese. We all decided to get the Meet Virginia flight, and my choice was motivated simply because of the fact that it's one that I haven't already done. It included a Joy White, Petit Verdot, Vidal blanc, and a chambourcin. We thought this was also a good flight to choose because it included two whites and two reds. The vidal blanc was a basic and easy white to drink, but the Joy white in my personal opinion was kind of oily. Reds are not my favorite, but as far as the reds, the Chambourcin was very full bodied and that was obvious for sure. The petit Verdot was less full bodied and strong which made me enjoy it a bit more, and it was a little sweeter as well. For our cheese plate, we asked our very knowledgable waiter (shout out to him, very good server) to pick whatever cheeses he thought would make for good and interesting pairings to give us a lot to write about, and he was very excited about that. For our cheeses, he brought us a swiss, a mustard cheese and merlot cheese. Let me just start off by saying that I absolutely despised the mustard cheese just on its own and didn't eat it after the first bite of trying it. I tried it with the Petit Verdot, and I honestly just thing that exemplified the intensity of the cheese, so I wasn't a big fan of that. I was a big fan of the other two cheeses, the swiss and the merlot. I tried these with a sip of each of the wines. For the swiss, I thought it was really complimented by the white wines. The whites really brought out the fattiness of the cheese without overpowering it. The merlot cheese was complimented by the red, not exactly bringing out any strong flavors in the cheese, maybe the saltiness if anything, but just pairing really well.










Me in the background looking really excited to be there.