State Line Liquors’ Events & Product Features 

Scroll below for Wine, Beer and then Spirit Info for Tastings, Sales and Product Features…

Annual Wine Sale is ON!!

20% off 750ml Bottles of Wine*

Now through Monday, Feb 20th

The wine sale is back! Same deal as last year, 750ml bottles of wine are 20% off *excluding existing sale (yellow-stickered or coupon) items.

This applies to reds, whites, rosé, bubblies, Port, Madeira, Sherry, and saké.

For saké and wine bottles it encompasses 300mls, 375mls, 500mls, 620mls, 750mls, 900mls, and 1L bottles.

Stock up on old favorites, try something new, but whatever you do, get in early before some of the more limited items are gone!

Any questions? Ask the wine team.

Wine Advice that Nobody Asked For…

Join us in this new, semi-regular, series in which Joe offers mostly unsolicited advice and opinions about wine.

Wine, Naturally.

Any keen eyed reader of food and drink publications probably will have noticed that the term “natural wine” has normalized in the lexicon. This of course shouldn’t be confused with “clean wine” which is a marketing gimmick that I’ll rant about another time. Though it’s been covered in a variety of publications, how about another take on it that nobody has asked for.

This trend has been growing in commonality for years now, and we’ve been asked often enough for the stuff that we’ve developed a selection of wines located near the front of the store. There is still a fair bit of confusion around the category, so allow me to add to the bewilderment.

If the wine is natural do they use sulfites? Maybe. Is natural wine organically or biodynamically farmed? Not necessarily, or maybe it is, but it isn’t certified, unless it is. Is natural wine regulated? Depends where you make it. Is natural wine better for you? It’s wine, I’m not drinking it for my health, but yes… maybe, I don’t know. If I’m not drinking natural wine, am I drinking unnatural wine? Depends on what you think is natural.

Depending who you ask, the natural wine movement started in 1950s Loire Valley, or 1970s Beaujolais, or some will say that it’s always existed and we’ve only recently started making wine in an unnatural way. I think a good starting point is the idea that all winemaking is in some way interventionist, where we go from here is how interventionist winemaking ought to be.

Post World War 2, there was a lot of “better living through chemistry,” and herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides were promised to make life easier for farmers. And let’s be frank, farming is hard work, so who can blame them. However after some experimentation with synthetic pest control and fertilizers, grape growers realized that the result was often more scorched earth than prodigious bounty. Pesticides and herbicides can often kill the good with the bad.

Enter 1970’s Beajolais where the Gang of Four (Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Jean-Paul Thévenet, and Guy Breton) was inspired by winemaker and chemist Jules Chauvet. After seeing vineyards transformed from biodiverse plots of land interspersed with all sorts of life to near dead plots of soil and vine kept functioning by synthetic fertilizer, the pendulum swung and the Gang decided to try an alternative. Eschewing synthetics and pesticides, these guys leaned into cover crops, integrated pest control, spontaneous yeast fermentation, and minimal sulfite additions.

These decisions still form the backbone of what is considered natural wine today. So there’s the elevator pitch version of natural wine’s history, but what does that mean for wine drinking right now? Still a fair bit of confusion since natural wine can be, but doesn’t have to be: organically farmed, biodynamically farmed, fermented with natural yeast, have limited sulfite additions, may be unfined, may be unfiltered, may be aged with extended skin contact in the case of white wines, and may be intentionally (or unintentionally) sparkling.

Natural wine is such a wide spectrum, that the best advice I can give is to approach the category with an open mind and a willingness for conversation. Some wines considered natural wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, while others will have flavors and textures so extreme it will make you question what is real. I don’t want to spook anybody here, but we have to know what we’re getting into.

If you’ve come away from reading this with more questions than answers, and feel like you’re under informed but slightly intrigued, then you’re ready for natural wine.

-Joe Buchter, Import Wine Buyer

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Seated Wine Tastings

All are by pre-paid reservation only due to limited seating availability in our tasting room.  Once costs and featured products are posted, please call to purchase your tickets at 1-800-446-9463.

 

Moshin Vineyards Featuring Rick Moshin

Thursday, Feb 9th, 6:30-8pm  Cost: $20- Reservations Required     

Rick is coming back to State Line to present his popular Russian River and Sonoma County Wines, notably Zinfandel, Chardonnay and many Pinot Noir!

From math teacher, to grape grower, to land owner, to winemaker, Rick bought his first acreage of Pinot Noir in 1989 and hasn’t looked back since.

Anybody who has attended Rick’s tastings before knows that he’s serious about making good wine. Call now to reserve your seat – (800) 446-9463

Tentative List:

Moshin Chenin Blanc

Westside Crossing Chardonnay

Westside Crossing Pinot Noir

Moshin Estate Pinot Noir

Moshin Pinot Noir, Calliope Vineyard

Moshin Pinot Noir, Rosalina Vineyard

Moshin Pinot Noir, Whole Cluster

Moshin Grenache

Moshin Zinfandel

 

Doria  ItalianWine Imports Featuring Christina and Marco Doria

Saturday, March 4, 7-9pm   Cost and Products TBD

Join us as we welcome Christina and Marco to explore carefully curated selections from their portfolio.

 

Austrian Wine Tasting Featuring Klaus Wittauer, Importer 

Saturday, March 25th   6:30-8:30pm   Costs and Products TBD

Join us as we welcome Klaus- many of you who are fans of Austrian wines will likely recognize producers within his portfolio–  Anton Bauer, Tegernseerhof, Steininger, Josef Bauer, Paul Direder and more!

 

Sake- Namazake Sake Featuring Monica Samuels, VP of Sake & Spirits, Vine Connections

Thursday, April 20th, 6:30-8pm

We welcome back Monica to present this year’s selections of Namazake, which are unpasteurized and quite compelling sake which, where possible we will taste side by side with the pasteurized version!

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Wine of the Week

Muga 2015 Prado Enea Rioja Gran Reserva

Sale Price: $79.99        Regular Price: $99.99

Muga’s Prado Enea is a masterpiece of a wine and a testament to the quality of Rioja’s greatness. Grapes are harvested parcel by parcel from high altitude Rioja Alta vineyards as each plot’s grapes reach optimal ripeness.

After harvest the grapes ferment with native yeasts, left completely to their own devices, without any temperature control aside from the natural cellar conditions.

After fermentation the wine is aged for 36 months in a mixture of French and American oak barrels of varying ages made by their in house cooperage. Following those three years in barrel, the wine is bottled and stored at the winery in damn near ideal conditions for ANOTHER 36 months.

The result is a wine concentrated in deep red fruits, balanced with enough mild, unobtrusive tannins and acidity that while enjoyable now, tastes like it could be easily aged for another ten years.

-Joe Buchter, Import Wine Buyer

Monte Antico Tuscan Red

Coupon Price Through 2/1/23 – $8.99

Normal Price – $11.99

Every month we put ten different wines on coupon, often at a greater than 20% discount for the 750ml bottles. We play real nice with our importer and distributor partners to be able to buy good wine at a pretty fair price to feature each month. One of this month’s features is the Monte Antico Tuscan red.

A longtime staple here at the store, Monte Antico comes from Empson wine importers. The fruit is sourced from a few different parts of Tuscany including the coastal Maremma and the hills around Siena and Pisa.

The wine is a blend of Sangiovese (85%), Cabernet Sauvignon (10%), and Merlot (5%) that is aged for twelve months before bottling in a mix of new and two year old French barrique, as well as larger Slavonian barrels that are about 5 to 6 years old.

As solid a Tuscan table wine as any and certainly worth trying while it’s on coupon.

-Joe Buchter, Import Wine Buyer

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Wine Spotlight

Sample wines with the sales rep!

Friday, Feb 3rd   3-6pm   Sposato Wines

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Drie Fonteinen Sale!

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen

25% Off Now through the end of February

While Supplies Last

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen began it’s existence as a café and “geuzestekerij” in 1887. At a geuzestekerij, lambic beer is purchased from other brewers and then blended and aged to the tastes of the in house cellar master.

Drie Fonteinen historically purchased lambic produced by Boon, Girardin, and Lindemans to make a blended geuze lambic. In 1953 Gaston de Belder purchased the establishment and expanded it to a larger restaurant.

His sons Armand and Guido took over the operation in 1982, ultimately laying the ground work to build their own brewery on site in 1998. Since then they have been making their own beer while also continuing to buy lambic from other producers to suit their blending, bottling, and geuzestekerij needs.

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Seated Beer Tastings!

Beer 303 – Sour Beers           

Presented By Andrew Johnston, Director of Brewing Operations, Iron Hill Brewery

6:30 to 8pm – Thursday, January 26th      $25 per person, pre-paid reservation required

Class size is limited to 20 people – (800) 446-9463—-Waiting list only- sold out

We’re happy to finally announce the next in our series of Beer Classes! Beer 303: Sour Beers!

We appreciate everyone’s interest in this class and really appreciate your patience as we had to wait a little bit to get some things in order for this event. But we think you’ll agree that it be worth the wait! Iron Hill’s Director of Brewing Operations, Andrew Johnston, will be here once again this time to lead us through the some of the styles associated with the broad category of “Sours.”

This samplings will include some exceptional and rare beers, but unfortunately a number of them are in such limited supply that there will be no bottles available for sale (including the Cantillon). We anticipate this class selling out, so please do not delay in calling to reserve your spot!

Tentative Beer List

Westbrook Gose
Blackberry Farms Berliner Weisse
Van Steenberge Monk’s Cafe
3 Fonteinen Oude Gueuze
Cantillon Fou’ Foune
Odd Breed Oddities & Outliers
Dewey Beer Co. Secret Machine

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Brewery Spotlights-

Join us up front as brewery/cidery reps pour samples:

3 to 6 pm, Friday Jan 13th-  Athletic Brewing

Curious about modern Non Alcoholic beers? Well here’s your chance to try some! Athletic Brewing will be here for a Brewery Spotlight on Friday from 3-6 pm. Stop by to sample some of their delicious Non Alcoholic beers, which exemplify how far we’ve come just in the past few years!

3 to 6pm, Fri Feb10th- Port City Brewery

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