Updated October 2021
ZOOM Wine tastings to cope with COVID
Does Coronavirus have you sheltering in place? You likely don’t have enough wine in the house, or you’re trying to avoid dipping heavily into your cellar stash.
Luckily, many wineries and distributors are offering discounts and getting creative on how to hold tastings. Use our list as a guide for the best wine delivery recommendations, cooking at home food pairings, and virtual wine tasting experiences.
1. #OpenLocalWine
Wineries are squeezed along with the rest of the Food and Bev industry during this difficult time. Support the local wineries by ordering a few bottles of wine! Here’s what we’re ordering that’s drinking well.
We’re currently isolating in the beautiful Carmel California and we are drinking plenty of wine from one of our favorite local producers.
Don’t miss our wine tasting guide to Carmel by the sea.
Windy Oaks
One of our local favorite Santa Cruz mountain wineries is waiving shipment costs with a 3 bottle minimum during March. Our top 3 picks below, but you can’t go wrong with any bottle from their website!
- Sparkling Albarino: This sparking wine has a lot of character. Dry brut, crisp, but splashed with a bit of salinity. This sparkling wine is full of body – fruits of peach, nectarine, and pear, with notes of brioche and toasted nuts.
- Food Pairing: Even if you’re not a fan of bubbles, it’s high acidity make it a great food wine! We suggest cheese, salty foods and fried foods like chicken or fish & chips.
- Pinot Noir: Henry’s Block is a single varietal with some of the best estate grapes. Light in color but not in the mouth. This wine full of strawberry, cherries, blackberries, with a bit of earthiness to round it out.
- Food Pairing: Mild cheeses, and meats – particularly if cooked in red wine – such as burgers, steak, and venison.
- Sauvignon Blanc (Barrel Fermented): Sauvignon Blanc is generally low on our list of wines to drink, but the barrel ferment brings out more life than a typical SB. Palate of acidic fruits like grapefruit and lemon, with a brush of glazed pineapple and sprinkle of herbs at the end which allow for some unique food pairings.
Check out our guide to pairings with other white wines
2. Verve Wines
Our favorite wine bar in San Francisco / New York also offers hundreds of international wines via delivery.
Currently they’re promoting 10% off 4 bottles, and $12 flat shipping over $150. Here are our favorite 4 bottles right now:
- Grenache (Whitcraft Stolpman) – One of our favorite Santa Barbara producers. This light bodied Grenache has a great balance of red fruit and earthy notes.
- Food Pairing: Grilled or stewed meats, and mushroom dishes such as risotto.
- Riesling (Lauer Fass 11′) – German Rieslings are amongst the world’s finest and great to pair with food. This Lauer is full of petrol, acidity, and fruits of citrus and melon.
- Food Pairing: Spicy Thai or Asian dishes.
- Chablis (Danielle-Etienne 1er Cru) – You don’t often find aged Chabils for sale, and a Premier Cru from the left side of Serein River (more minerality and acidity in style) is a bargain!
- Food Pairing: Seafood, sushi, oysters and lean meats such as chicken.
- Chardonnay (Sandhi) – For $25, you can’t beat this Chardonnay–from one of our favorite producers in Southern California.
- Food Pairing: Seafood, sushi, oysters, buttery fish as well as creamy dishes such as potato gratin.
3. Wine.com
Wine.com is offering $20 off $100 for new customers, and we were pleasantly surprised with their extensive list wines from small to large batch producers.
Here are our picks for best buys:
- South Africa: AA Badenhorst, Sadie Family Wines
- Oregon: Eyrie
- California: CADE, Joseph Phelps, Brewer Clifton
- New Zealand: Burn Cottage
- France: Domaine Pierre Gelin
4. Virtual wine tastings
We can wine taste from the couch in our lululemon? We’re picking up what this new trend is putting down.
Each winery has their own take on the format and as we expect to shelter in place for a while, we’re going to make the most of this. If you’ve been considering a Coravin, now is your time to purchase so that you can taste wines without having to open the whole bottles.
Cade Winery / Plumpjack Group
Full disclosure: we are members are Cade Winery and just attended their first happy hour on Facebook live. It nice to hear tasting notes straight from the winemakers, which is rare even when you visit the wineries for a tasting.
Viewers can type questions as winemaker Danielle Cyrot sips through a few different varietals and vintages. She let her audience in on her personal wine habits and the “secret sauce” to CADE’s success.
Though we’ve visited the winery 5+ times, we still learned something new. She orders barrels from over 25 cooperages, even though they only grow a few grape varietals, as she wants to ensure all of the wines are multidimensional.
Rumors are circulating about Far Niente, Nickel & Nickel, and Justin Winery (a bit commercial for us but usually a crowd pleaser!) launching their own virtual tastings soon.
There are other wineries hosting virtual tastings, but we’re hoping to see more from some of our favorites. We will keep this page updated as more arise, and please get in contact with us if you have any recommendations!
5. In Good Taste
We recently discovered this California-based company and are on board with what they are doing: Small bottle sampler packs with the tagline: “Discover the world, by the glass”.
Too often, trying different wines from around the world can be daunting and expensive. Since we don’t have access to friendly wine store employees to guide us, In Good Taste is a great option.
The sampler pack comes with pretty 187ml glass bottles–perfect for sampling. Grapes are all California grown and varietals include Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sav Blanc and several blends.
We got together with some friends and played a blind tasting game with the kit, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Our favorite was the Santa Rita hills Chardonnay which had very restrained oak flavors, bursting with minerality.
As a special for Wine Scribes subscribers, save $10 by entering discount code “SCRIBES” at checkout.
