Editor’s note: The Red, White and Brew weekly feature will highlight drinks from local liquor stores.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Avon Liquor invites you into a world of textures in wine.
Velvety upon your tongue, caressing the inside of your mouth, causing you to salivate — this is an invite into a world of texture. Liquid honey teasing your nose, tantalizing and enveloping your tongue in a dance between fruit and acid, leaving a tang upon your lips — this is texture. Experiencing a flower as a petal that flits across your tongue, leaving traces of jasmine and roses — all of this is texture.
When you walk into the world of wine at Avon Liquor, you are immediately treated to French Bordeaux and Burgundies from the 1990s to the 2016 vintage. Older vintages and treasures are scattered throughout our temperature controlled wine room from all sorts of countries.
Avon Liquor is extremely serious about the wines we choose; how they are made, where they come from, the sense of place and the winemakers commitment to showing us the fruits of their labor. Family- and estate-grown wines are what we specialize in. You are sure to taste the difference between family estate wines at $8.99 and industrialized wines at the same price. This commitment to quality is what Avon Liquor is all about.
The best wines in the world integrate texture as a component in the wine. Complex textures in wine match amazingly with the texture in food, achieving the perfect quality in taste. The good news is that texture does not necessarily equal a huge price tag. Obvious wines, big and extracted with more alcohol, can be void of texture.
Recommended Stories For You
How wine moves
Descriptions of texture are not easy to define.
Andre Ostertag, a famous winemaker in Alsace, described texture as: “How the wines moved in his mouth.”
Wine texture involves the components of glycerin and tannin, but can also be from barrel aging, or lees contact. Some terrior (vineyards), produce grapes especially textural as in wines from Alsace. Racking, or moving wine from barrel to barrel, fining (adding products that bind tannin) and the length of aging before bottling also affect texture.
Texture is an important component in the experience of tasting wine.
Mark Vlossak, the winemaker from St. Innocent Winery in Oregon is celebrating his 25th vintage of Pinot Noir in Willamette. He described texture to me as: “The sensation of the wine in your mouth. It is the feel of the fluid as it interacts with your tongue, your cheeks and your throat. It changes from the moment the wine enters your mouth and lingers after it is swallowed. It can be dynamic, moving in a linear fashion from the back to the front of your mouth, or it can ricochet from side to side. It can be fine and delicate or forceful. It can be pleasant or abusive. Texture can also be almost entirely absent. Such sensations interact with aromas and flavors to create the complex interaction we call tasting.” A great definition.
Next time you are shopping for a wine, stop by Avon Liquor; where the serious wine buyers buy. Let us show you wines with beautiful texture.
Here are just two examples:
St. Innocent Pinot Blanc “Freedom Hill” 2015 Willamette Valley, Oregon; priced at $19.99.
Ogier Vacqueyras “Boiseraie” 2017 Grenache and Syrah, France; priced at $24.99.