For several months now, we have been beavering away with our digital design and marketing partner, Bouncing Orange, to come up with a more contemporary brand that was reflective of our goal of delighting and surprising our customers with products not found at your average supermarket owned liquor outlet. Importantly our new brand needed to reflect our strong connection with the art and process of wine making and brewing. We believe we have hit the mark with our new brand’s rustic feel that take us back to the agricultural roots of tendering the vineyards or farms and the passion that...
For us baby boomers who grew up in the 70’s, we carry around a lot of serious affections that still manage to haunt us to this very day. Images such as platform shoes and polyester shirts can still transport us back to the 70’s and invoke cringe-induced panic attacks. And after all these years we can still taste that fizzy, sweet lambrusco that we all drunk with the sole purpose of getting drunk back in the 70’s.
And so Lambrusco became a joke among serious wine-lovers, who had little use for it, other than comparing memories of their introductions to the pleasures of hangovers.
But lets face it, the 70’s were a long, long time ago and nothing was as bad (or as good) as our failing memories lead us to believe. The time has come to consign this unfortunate impression of Lambrusco to the same locked attic trunk that holds the 70s disco wear.
Wouldn’t it be nice to find a bottle that stood out from the rest. Something you could take to a dinner party that could become a talking point before it is even opened.
Well you can. And it should come as no surprise that it is an Italian who has pushed the boundaries with an iconic combination of clever shapes and colour.
Cantine Ceci, a family owned winery from Emilia-Romagna, one of Italy’s most prolific wine regions, uses not one, but a series of clever and beautifully designed bottles to showcase its wine. And once you’ve finished marveling at the bottles, and actually open one of these eye-catching bottles, you will experience wine of an exceedingly high quality and outstanding personality. A perfect match between bottle and wine.
Lets face it - Pinot Noir is a difficult, problem grape!!!
It's hard to get a consistent, great Pinot Noir. To grow great Pinot Noir, you must overcome a multitude of problems, starting with the plant - as Pinot Noir is genetically unstable. A parent plant can produce an offspring with wildly different berry size and shape and even flavour. Pinot Noir is also a bit like that sickly child: it seems to pick up every known vine disease, mould, fungus and pest. And it's an early ripening variety so spring frosts are hazardous.When picked too late the thin-skinned berries will shrivel up and lose all flavour. The grape's tendency to produce tightly packed clusters makes it susceptible to several viticultural hazards involving rot that require diligent canopy management. The thin-skins and low levels of phenolic compounds lends Pinot to producing mostly lightly colored, medium bodied low tannin wines that can often go through dumb phases with uneven and unpredictable aging.
