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The club is designed for those who like to enjoy wine every day and those who know that wine helps make a party great - no matter what size! But who has time to make that extra trip after work to the wine store, trolling through endless bottles of wine? You should spend your time enjoying the wine, so we pick great bottles at great prices for you. No more guess work!

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While attending The 2009 Miami Wine and Food Festival, I was able to taste some great wine from around the world. One winery that stood out was Napa Valley winery Napa Station, whose selections included a Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. After tasting their 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, I found there was a hint of sweetness and found that there was 10% Semillon blended into the wine. Wanting to do a more in-depth tasting, I grabbed a bottle and put it in the cellar. This past weekend, I brought the bottle out when a Sauvignon Blanc was requested. Here are my thoughts:

Napa Station 2007 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc
On the nose, there is lemon zest, a touch of minerality similar to a bottle from the Loire, and vanilla bean, reminiscent of oak barreling. This vanilla flavor is curious considering the wine is fermented in 100% stainless steel. On the palate, the bottle resembles a French style wine even more. The herbal, grassy flavors are balanced by a subtle mix of lemon/lime citrus and touches of shale. There is also a sweetness present – a light suggestion of melon, probably from the Semillon. The winey describes the wine as also having pear flavors, but I did not taste any tree fruit.

It was a very nice light white, well received by my guests. I don’t know how well it would stand up to heavier foods, but as an aperitif or with salad, it gets the job done well. At a price of $15 it is a good value considering it is from Napa, but if you prefer the ripe grapefruit flavors found in New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, this isn’t the bottle for you.

Find out more about Napa Station at www.napastation.com

On so many weekends, families are left with the decision of whether to go out to dinner, order in, or cook.  But on Memorial Day weekend, families are able to take advantage of the warming weather, spend time with one another, and barbecue. Ice cold soda and water are staples at most any barbecue, and there’s no reason to exclude wine from the beverage list.  In general, wines served with the bold, rich flavors of any barbecue must be assertive.  Finding a wine that will get along well with sweet barbecue on chicken or ribs is pretty challenging. Considering all the possible toppings, grilled burgers and hot dogs can be equally challenging to pair, but there are certainly wines to compliment any type of barbecue.

Reds should be big, well balanced, smooth and not over the top in alcohol. Luscious, ripe berry flavors, bright acidity and complex spice can handle most of the heavier barbecue favorites. Try to find wines that are more full bodied in flavor, rather than full bodied in alcohol.  Wines over 14.5% are often “hot” and the heat from the spice will overwhelm the other flavors in the food.  Cote du Rhones are a good choice with their smooth tannins and smoky finish – just right with pulled pork and pork ribs. Another good suggestion is Zinfandel (the red, not the pink), especially the young spicy ones with lots of black pepper and raspberry.  Zinfandels are great for standing up to barbecue sauce flavor, and yet still remain easy drinking. A nice grapey Australian Shiraz with silky, smoky tannins, red berry and ripe fruit flavors would also fare well with any barbecue regulars. For those who need something closer to a full bodied wine, a Malbec should fit the bill. Bold in their peppery spice and smoky black berry flavors, Argentinean Malbecs will pair with steaks, chops, ribs, burgers – just about anything you can throw on the grill. For the sake of argument, I will mention the possibility of Beaujolais, so long as it is chilled. But I personally feel that if grilling something more intense than burgers and hot dogs, Beaujolais is not the way to go.

White wines can also work as well with barbecue, especially with Pulled Pork and Chicken.  Bright, crisp flavors cut through the rich and sometimes fatty flavors of barbecue. I would steer clear of California Chardonnays which can be oakey and buttery. This will only enhance the heaviness of the food instead of refreshing your palate. But if you really want Chardonnay, try one made in the French region of Chablis. Here, Chardonnay is made with no oak, and so it has more of a crisp minerality to it, along with bright tree fruit. Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, and Rieslings are all good choices as well because of their low oak, and crisp flavors. They will all perk up your palate, and are light enough to go with just about anything from seafood salad to chicken and sausage. Practically any sparkling wine will be great at any barbecue as well.  Those tiny bubbles will cut right through the heaviest of foods, keeping you ready for second helpings. You could even try a Moscato, but I hear that pairs the best with honey barbecue chicken.

I’ll have to wait and see what wines make their way onto my Memorial Day drink list. Of course, I will be posting my thoughts after my barbecue, but I’d be very interested to know what you had as well – good and bad.

We have been huge fans of Jonata since we received their initial offering in the spring of 2008.  Winemaker Matt Dees focuses on blending varietals in order to produce incredibly complex wines. Dees’ 2004 El Desafio de Jonata was fantastic when paired with a center-cut New York Strip Steak and a Filet Mignon – both cooked to perfection at South Beach’s own Meat Market.  For those of you who bring bottles to local restaurants (BYOBs), it’s a great feeling to bring a bottle that makes the Sommelier jealous. More recently, I opened a bottle of the La Miel de Jonata, a blend of 80% Semillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc, a blend that Robert Parker wasn’t too thrilled with. With all due respect Mr. Parker, I think you may have been mistaken.

The South Beach Wine Club had the opportunity to meet Matt at The Best of The Best event, sponsored by The South Beach Wine and Food Festival. Nothing is better at a wine even than finding a great winery, and being able to taste bottles you have laying down in the cellar. Who doesn’t like a sneak preview? But it was also good to meet a winemaker so passionate about the work that he does. I had told Matt about the wonderful red that we enjoyed at Meat Market; he suggested trying Jonata’s whites.

La Miel De Jonata

Finally taking his suggestion, we opened up a bottle of La Miel de Jonata, a blend of 2004-2006 vintages. One truly important characteristic about the bottle was that it was 500ml. So many dessert bottles are 375ml, and are finished in too short of a time. However, the extra little bit in this bottle caused it to last just a little longer in our glasses. All 500ml of this wine was wonderful. I didn’t find it to be “monolithic and one-dimensional” as Robert Parker described. In fact, I found it to be incredibly lush and quite round in the mouth. Here are my thoughts:

NV La Miel de Jonata
The bouquet offers notes of lemon custard, fresh mango, orange marmalade and candied peaches. I agree with the winery’s assessment. There is the slight burn of sweet alcohol, but this dissipates once the wine has had a chance to breathe. On the palate there is plenty of sweet honey filling the mouth which was not overly thick as some Sauternes can be. Within the honeyed sweetness comes candied Granny Smith apple, apricot, white peaches and the slightest hint of orange peel. The finish isn’t as long as you’d like, but the shortness of it makes you beg for another sip.

The $75 price tag may be the only turn-off to customers looking for a new great dessert wine.  But when considering that 375ml (half bottles) can cost between $40-80 for high quality Sauternes or Icewine, a bottle from Jonata is in the ballpark. So the next time you’re in the market for a sweet bottle of wine, break the monotony of typical dessert varietal and try a creative blend from one of the top wineries in California. Let us know what you think.

There are cheap dinners that involve take-out or fast food, and then there are CHEAP dinners that are amazingly classy. One such dinner took place at the Miccosukee Resort in Miami. For the ridiculously low price of $6.95, their Café Hammock serves its famous Florida Steak and Lobster Special. And what wine was served with this unbelievably priced meal? Blue Nun’s Medium Sweet Riesling.

The fact that it was Blue Nun Riesling served with the meal is overshadowed by the larger question of what do you serve with surf and turf. A red for the steak that is light enough for the lobster, or a white that compliments the lobster and can still stand up to the steak. It was decided to order a white with our particular meal, and at a price of $18 ($7 in any store), the Blue Nun seemed like a good choice. A value bottle all the way, the Blue Nun came through marvelously, not because of what it offered, but because of what it was missing: any real flavor that would offend any part of the meal.

From the 1950s into the 1970s, Blue Nun was marketed as the wine that could be drunk throughout the entire meal. It’s just a simple, light, sweet wine, so what couldn’t it be paired with. A heavy steak dinner would certainly overshadow such a light white.  But with just steak, you wouldn’t order a white. With surf and turf, a balance has to be struck between the competing food flavors. The wine should refresh the palate, not detract from dinner. This particular Riesling was a good choice because it did just that. What’s more is that Blue Nun has a slight petrol character in the finish that complimented the minerality of the lobster, as well as the grilled flavor of the steak. The petrol flavor is more common in German Riesling that has a few years on it. In this case, we may have just lucked out.

Pairing a light Riesling with surf and turf is not an obvious choice, but it is something worth trying. It is up to the individual to choose a bottle of his or her preferred sweetness. Due to the fact that the wine has to walk the line between seafood and red meat, a more expensive bottle may not be right; too much complexity could cause a less than desirable effect. If cooking at home, the best bet would be to buy a bottle that is around the same price as your meat’s cost per pound.

The Manilow Wines debuted in 2005 when Barry started his residency at the Las Vegas Hilton. They were originally created solely for sale in the hotel.

But as of late, the wines have begun being sold raise money for Mr. Manilow’s charity, The Manilow Fund For Health and Hope (www.manilowfund.org). Celebrity wines tend to leave a bad taste in consumers’ palettes as they sometimes are just basic wines with a pretty label that don’t justify the cost. Here are my thoughts and pairing suggestions for the Pinot Grigio and Merlot:

2007 Pinot Grigio:
On the nose there is bright acidity, with notes of caramel Washington apples and candied Granny Smith apples. The palate is fruit forward, offering vibrant tree fruit – pear and apple cobbler – leading into an oily smooth finish that echos the clay that the grapes were grown in. An excellent choice as a stand alone Pinot Grigio, but equally great with light salty foods such as seafood or a caesar salad (even with anchovies).

2007 Merlot:
The nose is filled with ripe dark fruit – jammy black raspberry and sweet licorice, coupled with the earthy tones that are so richly associated with Italian Merlot. The palate exhibits silky tannins wrapped around peppered black cherry, interlaced with earth and mushroom. The soft finish makes this a medium-bodied, easy drinking red to enjoy by itself, or with lighter meats such as pork or veal.