Gemtree Vineyards = Good Vino
Becki, Cyndi and I went to the wine tasting at House of Tricks tonight. I had no idea who or what was being featured. It was more of a social thing for me, plus I know House of Tricks is a cool place with good eats. For $25, you get the wine and your own plate of four cheeses, grapes, strawberries and a shared basket of crispy bread. It was definitely enough for dinner for me.
The vineyard tonight was Gemtree from Australia and Eymeric Darsch from Gemtree was there to present. I couldn't place his accent but I later read that he's a French-American. He was clearly excited about his products and rightly so.
Our first tasting wasn't even on the list. It was an Albarino (put a tilde on that n) which is a Spanish grape that they started growing down under. Think somewhere between a Pinot Grigio and a Riesling. It was quite good and only two other people in the US had tasted it before we got to. That was cool.
Our tasting list also included their Citrine Chardonnay, Tadpole Chardonnay/Viognier, Bloodstone Shiraz, Uncut Shiraz and Cadenzia which is a blend of Grenache, Tempranillo and Shiraz. The Tadpole and the Bloodstone were really good and the Cadenzia was excellent.
Gemtree is a relatively small wine producer so you can't find their stuff in the major stores. We were told that Sportsmen's, AZ Wine and AJ's will order them for you, though.
Besides the opportunity to enjoy some nice wines, we also got some interesting information. Gemtree grows using biodynamics. It's not organic per se, but based on using the lunar cycle to grow.
For instance,their vineyards are right near the ocean. They've learned to trim the vines at low tide because high tide pushes the vines higher out of the ground so fragile parts are exposed, trimmed then end up bleeding. They also use sheeps to kill their weeds. Eymeric actually said "sheeps" which made me laugh because that's what Sugar Daddy and I call them.
I must digress from the tasting (because I love to digress) but House of Tricks is right next to a Mosque. I don't know if they do this every night or if it's just because it's Ramadan but it was more than a bit surreal sitting there and sipping wine while listening to Islamic prayers over the loudspeaker. I felt a little guilty because I parked in the Mosque's parking lot, too.
The vineyard tonight was Gemtree from Australia and Eymeric Darsch from Gemtree was there to present. I couldn't place his accent but I later read that he's a French-American. He was clearly excited about his products and rightly so.
Our first tasting wasn't even on the list. It was an Albarino (put a tilde on that n) which is a Spanish grape that they started growing down under. Think somewhere between a Pinot Grigio and a Riesling. It was quite good and only two other people in the US had tasted it before we got to. That was cool.
Our tasting list also included their Citrine Chardonnay, Tadpole Chardonnay/Viognier, Bloodstone Shiraz, Uncut Shiraz and Cadenzia which is a blend of Grenache, Tempranillo and Shiraz. The Tadpole and the Bloodstone were really good and the Cadenzia was excellent.
Gemtree is a relatively small wine producer so you can't find their stuff in the major stores. We were told that Sportsmen's, AZ Wine and AJ's will order them for you, though.
Besides the opportunity to enjoy some nice wines, we also got some interesting information. Gemtree grows using biodynamics. It's not organic per se, but based on using the lunar cycle to grow.
For instance,their vineyards are right near the ocean. They've learned to trim the vines at low tide because high tide pushes the vines higher out of the ground so fragile parts are exposed, trimmed then end up bleeding. They also use sheeps to kill their weeds. Eymeric actually said "sheeps" which made me laugh because that's what Sugar Daddy and I call them.
I must digress from the tasting (because I love to digress) but House of Tricks is right next to a Mosque. I don't know if they do this every night or if it's just because it's Ramadan but it was more than a bit surreal sitting there and sipping wine while listening to Islamic prayers over the loudspeaker. I felt a little guilty because I parked in the Mosque's parking lot, too.
