Wine & Words

 When I first started in the wine business (almost 8 years ago) I decided that we were going to carry a comprehensive selection of wines from all around the world, that aren’t available in local grocery stores, and that are good quality for the price at which we sell them. Of course, I read all the reviews and points ratings and “professional” recommendations, but I often found them confusing, heavily weighted toward big advertising spenders (e.g. Wine Spectator) or the style of the taster (e.g.
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More wines that go with this season of good food and good friends.
 
No. 1 Family Estate Cuvee Number Eight (Marlborough, New Zealand) Regular price $29.99, Feature price $24.00
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We are rapidly approaching the holiday season of feasts and festivals, so we herewith introduce some great wines to go with great meals.
 
Don Pedro Soutomaior Albariño 2008 (Rias Baixas, Spain) Regular Price $19.95, Feature Price $15.96
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When people come into our store and see the poster of a stylish black and white cow sitting in a crescent moon and sipping a glass of wine, I love to tell the Rag Apple Lassie story. How when Frank Hobson Jr. was just a little farmer boy, the Holstein calf he raised lovingly won Grand Champion at the North Carolina State Fair. How Frank Jr. was an “early adopter” of the new movement in his native Yadkin Valley – replacing tobacco growing with raising wine grapes. Frank Jr.
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We're into that long, satisfying season in downeast Carolina when cold fronts from the northwest try to push into our mass of humidity and mosquitoes.  Some mornings I open the back porch door at dawn and smile at a delicious dry chill in the air.  Other mornings I'm hit in the face with mugginess and the sound of cicadas cranking up the heat of the day.  It's the time when we start thinking about getting in some dry kindling for that first night we want a fire in the stove.  And we start thinking about wines that will go with the cooler weather and heartier foods of the
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The autumn of the year has its pleasures, even down here in coastal Carolina, where the summer seems to go on until Thanksgiving. During my childhood in northern Illinois and northern Ohio, autumn meant apples and apples meant cider.
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From time to time our suppliers have inventory clearance sales.  When they do, we pass the savings along to our customers.  Herein a list of five new wines that I've gotten in to both stores and am offering at "Special Purchase Prices."  These are great additions to our list...and great deals for our customers.
 
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I was shocked when I read the news. Gary Tomasulo slipped from the top of a building on Washington's Main Street to his death. He had recently bought the building and was doing what he loved to do...putter around fixing things, making plans, doing it himself. It was a dreary, rainy morning on Monday. They say he must have slipped on the wet fire escape. He was 62 years old. The same age as me.
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