Harry's Single Barrel Selection #5 is enroute!

Our next Single Barrel is on the way!

We were given the news today by the man himself Beau Beckman, who is the Barrel select manager at The Buffalo Trace Distillery, Sazerak Company. It was loaded on the truck and is headed toward Connecticut and then to our store by months end.

This is the 5th in our series and a staff favorite for its bright scents and  flavors of the spring season that are highlighted by beautiful floral aromas interwoven with tea and Tangerine. These pretty notes also carry through to your palate where they are accented by the more traditional flavors of caramel and brown sugar.

The arrival of this very exciting selection coincides with the lead into the Kentucky Derby and we think it is a marriage made in heaven. The question of whether we believe that this is our best barrel to date has been asked over and over by the followers of our program and the answer is a definite maybe!
You see, just like anything it all comes down to personal taste. I will say that it is delicious and we can't wait to get our hands on it. It is also safe to say that the people purchasing this gem will not be disappointed.

Our choice to do Blanton's as our 5th single barrel was based on the timing and the idea that the stopper or should I say stoppers on the top of the bottle show the horses stride on race day from standing in the gate to stretching for the finish line. Each of the stages of horse race and each are given a letter, B,L,A,N,T,O,N,S and the figurine on top depicts a different pose. Aficionados of the brand collect these and show them off on their private bourbon bars.

More here

Interested? In just a couple of weeks you can get yours too!

Rosé is Your Little Black Dress of the wine world!

Rosé has sprung!

Our Rosé section is almost in full bloom, almost, although not quite yet....

It started slowly creeping in a couple of weeks ago and now all of a sudden it's taking over the store. It's right there right in front of you as when you first walk in. It's occupying lots of space on the racks and has even taken over much of the storage in the back room.

All we talk about at the store now is rosé. Who's tried what? Who's liking what? Where and when do we like to drink rosé. It was in one of these recent conversations between my colleagues and myself when the thought occurred to me; Rosé is like your little black dress.

Here's why:
1) Rosé is classic and timeless. It will never and has never gone out of style. In fact, in maybe the oldest known type of wine.

2) Rosé is budget friendly. Rosés are usually a bargain. The wines are young and don't cost quite as much to make. There are plenty of good ones in the $10-15 range and if you do want to splurge, $25-30 is about as much as you will have to spend.

3)Rosé is spill friendly. That gorgeous rosy or salmon hue will wash out of almost anything.

4)Rosé is extremely versatile. It pairs with most foods. It can be dressed up for a gourmet meal or dressed down as a simple sipper for the beach, patio, picnic or BBQ. With rosé, you are always ready.

5)Rosé can be accessorized. Rosé cocktails anyone?

6)You feel good drinking rosé. It's light and usually lower in alcohol. You can enjoy a glass or two or three...and still maintain a clear head and a fresh palate.

7) Rosé is polished and effortless. Rosé is relatively simple to make compared to other wines. The  maceration period is short, usually 2-20 hours, just long enough to give the wine its color and structure. It spends little time in tank before being bottled and shipped out. Given this short cellar life rosés are still able to achieve balance, structure, full explosions of aromas on the nose and subtle nuances on the palate.

8)There's a rosé for everyone. Rosés are made in many different styles. Whether you prefer one fuller bodied, lighter bodied, fruity, savory, minerally, simple or more complex there's bound to be the perfect one just for you.

9)Rosé is reliable. When all else fails, bring out the rosé!

10)You can drink rosé all year long.

As we head further into spring and summer, Harry's will be carrying over 200 different rosés. Can you guess we love rosé? How many different ones will you try?

Rosé on!

Will Sipping Rum finally go mainstream this year?

The Spirit industry is expanding at an unprecedented rate in the craft realm as Bourbon drives the market, along with Scotch, Gin and Tequila. Consumers are looking for better than average products and there are many artisan producers that want to answer the call. As more and more artisan products are being produced, there is seemingly no end to the options in the market place today.

The Brown spirits, Single Malt Scotch and Bourbon, are on fire and having a very difficult time keeping up with demand. In a recent article, we read that the 18 year old Scotch supplies have virtually dried  up and in just a few months they will become a memory along with their, even older, counterparts.  Even the extraordinary price hikes that suppliers have taken, in order to slow consumption, hasn't done the trick. The Bourbon world is feeling a similar crunch although its recovery and viability should be more manageable.

When we look at the popularity of Gin and Tequila, this is not an issue, as it takes much less time to get these products to market. Artisan producers, in these categories, simply need to make products that people are looking for and make them well, since the millennial crowd does not want to settle for their parents middle of the road selections. Botanical Gins seem to be going the way of Bourbons, and its' fan base, might have a good handful of selections on their bar and Tequila, especially the "sippers" which look to be moving in the same direction.

Rum seems to be the next logical choice since there are so many different types being produced on seemingly every island in the Caribbean along with many south American countries.  The continental US is even dabbling a bit. There are a great deal of delicious options available in the Aged Rum category and  the prices are pretty reasonable considering how much time they have been maturing.

We are being presented with something else from this category, a few times a week, and the shelf space can be made available. The only question is demand. There have been more requests for a good aged Rum in the past couple of years and our selection has grown substantially. The problem is, that for as good as these products are, there is not a very big interest. Appreciators of this spirit are just as passionate as those in the other categories, there just are not as many of them yet.

Perhaps in the spring and summer of 2016, these carefully crafted spirits will finally break through. Maybe we will see the re-emergence of cocktail parties featuring everyone's newest favorite spirit, Rum! The upcoming season could mark the beginning of our newest fascination as Rum gets recognized for the beauty it has always kept hidden inside of its bottle.  Maybe in a couple of years we will be talking about the type of shortages that there are in the other brown spirits categories.

Only time will tell.

A wonderful evening spent with lessons learned

This past Wednesday, we had our second class of the semester titled "A Balancing Act", where we played to a smaller than usual class of like-minded wine geeks and found a few surprises. The class was centered around the trend back from "Parkerized wines".  This was a very popular movement 10-20 years ago where Robert Parker, along with Wine Spectator,and others ruled the wine world with their critiques and scoring of thousands of wines from around the globe.

This was, for many, their introduction to the wine world and by following along with these renowned critics, everyone could join in on the fun. The rating scale was easy to understand and there were graphs and tables set up to help guide us through a very confusing world. They tell us which vintages are best in each wine growing region and which wines and producers to look for. A seemingly perfect answer to the question. "how do I break into this exclusive wine world?".

The American fascination with wine exploded, and consumers scrambled to get the next issue in order to figure out what they should be drinking this season. Wine Spectator's annual top 100 issue was snapped up off of the news stands and the phones at local wine shops began ringing as eager wine lovers did their best to get as many of these wonderful wines as possible. So powerful was the word of people like Parker, that even wine makers were adjusting their individual style to match his/their palate(s).

Through the next decade plus, we followed blindly and listened to what we liked, or at least what we should be liking, if we were "In the know". Their scoring became so powerful that even the scale got skewed over time. What was a grading system like that of a high school math test, where a 75 was average and a 95 was very good back in the 1990's, transformed itself into what is now a scale that begins at 90 points for an average to slightly above average wine. It is almost a requirement to have a 93 or better to catch the eye of a wine buyer at the retail or consumer level.

This has actually helped the pendulum swing back the other way! Consumers have stopped looking for a tag with a score hanging on a shelf, and have gone back to talking with their shopkeepers and asking opinions about what is on the shelf. What has been discovered is that the disappointment that many of these people were feeling with a 88-91 point wine wasn't the fault of the rating system, but the critic! "Parkerized" wines are forward drinking with big alcohol and high extraction. They tire out your palate and don't work particularly well with food. While they immediately capture your attention at the first sip, it is hard to have a second glass because they are so fatiguing.

All of our eggs were in one basket.  We had been drinking the wines, that a very few people were tasting, and were being told that these wines were the "right" ones. While these over-extracted and high alcohol wines are showy on the first sip or two, they aren't particularly enjoyable over the long haul.

In class the other night, we started with a very well balanced Cheverny from the Loire region of France, that was light and crisp and very inviting. After we finished this wine, we assaulted our palates, first, with Mer Soliel Chardonnay from California that was barrel fermented and a whopping 14.8% alcohol, followed by and even bigger Molly Dooker "The Boxer" Shiraz from Australia, coming in at 15.5% alcohol.  The Shiraz stained the sides of our glasses, which were left with a thick sheet of purple black wine as we swirled and sipped. We talked about preferences in the wine world, and the idea that these big scorers were the style of particular critics and also of particular consumers. There isn't a "right" answer, just individual preference. Some of our attendees were immediately drawn to these wines and others were a bit turned off.

Good! It is your choice and your opinion. Stick with it!

Next we peeled those layers of wine from our tongues by offering some plain popcorn and a bit of sparkling wine.  Sound strange? Try it sometime. It is quite refreshing and really does put you back at a neutral place for further tasting. The rest of the evening was spent tasting wines from European producers that were lower in alcohol, 11.5-13%, with less oak and brighter acidity. These wines were less showy on the nose and in our mouths, but we found them to be more contemplative and paired very well with our cheeses.  Five more wines were tasted in all, and when we were finished, our palates were still refreshed and not fatigued. We also noticed that the lower alcohol left us more clear minded.

Interesting to note, as the students wandered around the store to make purchases, not a single bottle of the two high scorers was sold. Even the students that preferred that style going in to the evening, found themselves more interested in the old fashioned way, and selected wines with better balance.

It was a wonderful evening filled with lots of conversation and a wonderful invitation to reassess the way we thought about wine. At Harry's, we love the idea that so many of our customers engage us with questions and let us in on their personal preferences, so that we can match a selection to their individual style.

The other wines that we served that night? Glad you asked...


Domaine du Salvard 2014

Pierre Bonface Apremont 2014

Daniel Pollier Pouilly - Fuisse “ Les Perrieres” 2014

Vincent Bachelet Haute-Cotes de Beaune 2014 

Tenuta La Pergola Monferrato Rosso  2014

Brunnenhof Mazzon Lagrein 2013 


-Cheers