From Austria to Albuquerque: Grand Tasting at the Spirited Gourmet, Belmont

365 Days

From Austria to Albuquerque: Grand Tasting at the Spirited Gourmet, Belmont

Posted 11/15/2008 at 09:32 AM by Cathy

By Beth O'Brien

The Spirited Gourmet in Belmont billed its Grand Tasting as featuring "Over 50 Wines from Around the World."

It's nice to know that there is still truth in advertising.

Although the usual suspects – California, Italy and Germany – were well represented, there were also wines from Tasmania, Austria and Oregon. But perhaps the wine with the most notable lineage was a sparkling Brut NV from Gruet: the winery was started by a French winemaking family, the grapes are grown in the mountains of New Mexico and the sparkling wines are distilled in the traditional methode champenoise in, of all places, Albuquerque.

Diversity wasn't simply confined to region of origin, however. United Liquors poured a 2005 Faust Napa Cabernet, produced using biodynamic principles. A step beyond organic harvesting, biodynamic viticulture has a spiritual-mystical component that its proponents claim results in a more balanced product that remains drinkable longer. The Faust admittedly had a cleaner taste than comparable Cabs, but whether that is a result of appeasing the wine gods or of amenable terroir and production methods is up for debate.

Holiday season is sparkling wine season, so in addition to the Gruet Brut NV, The Spirited Gourmet offered an extra dry Santome Prosecco, an Adami Prosecco ("Vigna Giardino") and a Henriot NV Brut Souverain champagne. At $21.99 a bottle, the Adami is an excellent value and a safe bet – the wine managed to be both dry and slightly, but not cloyingly, sweet. It's an easy pairing with a variety of holiday bites.

The Spirited Gourmet occupies a relatively small storefront in Cushing Square, but proprietors Chris and Elena Benoit orchestrated their Grand Tasting through a combination of masterful logistics (they managed to accommodate 11 distributors with only five tables) and personal attention. The Benoits limited the number of bottles each distributor could pour to an atypical four or five and personally approved each selection. The result was a reflection of the owners' eclectic taste and the strong relationship they have with their distributors.

Add to this the shop's suburban cool atmosphere and you find that there are far worse ways to spend a rainy Saturday than mingling with the convivial hosts and patrons at The Spirited Gourmet's first anniversary Grand Tasting.

May you have many more anniversaries. And may you keep us on your guest list!

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About the Author

Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe writes about drinking wine every day in the Boston area. She finds the quirky characters, the after-hours events, and the surprising stories that make up Boston's vibrant local wine scene. But no matter where she is, what she's doing, or who she's with, she mostly just wants to drink the stuff.

Her first restaurant gig was at Chez Panisse, when she knocked on the kitchen's back door and asked if she could work there. She's also worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris and Thomas Keller in Las Vegas. She went to graduate school at Harvard (twice), and her writing has run in Boston magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Edible Boston, and on Nevada Public Radio and Grist.org.