Orin Swift Birthday Wine Tasting

Hello Kittens and Happy Monday?

Mondays are hard.  I don't think too many people would disagree with that statement.  Most weeks, for me, the best part of the day is coming home and opening a nice bottle of wine.  All in the name of preserving my sanity.

Earlier this month, a friend notified me of a wine tasting that was taking place at BottleRock, a wine bar not far from my apartment.  While I hadn't been there in a while, I recently learned that it has been voted as one of the top ten wine bars in the United States.  And once you've paid this place a visit, it's not hard to see why.  BottleRock is beautiful and sleek with incredible wine, an amazing menu, and a friendly, knowledgeable staff.  I believe I'll have to become a regular here.  Especially if they have wine tastings as incredible as the one we went to on a regular basis!

While I would be quite interested in attending a wine tasting on any normal occasion, this particular tasting was special for a few reasons: first, it was taking place a few days after my birthday.  Second, my friend Kim was still in town.  And third, it was a tasting of one of my favorite wine makers, Orin Swift.  Happy Birthday to me!  Again!!

While the bottles below are not the exact bottles that were poured that night, we did taste most of them and I though you might like to see just how pretty they all are - both the wines and the bottles themselves are works of art!  Just a few quick things about Orin Swift.  Their flagship wine, Prisoner, was recently sold to another winemaker and is still retaining the name The Prisoner, but is now being produced by the newly established The Prisoner Wine Company (such a creative name, no?).  Also being produced by The Prisoner Wine Company is Saldo, Cuttings, and one of the only white wines to be associated with this brand, Blindfolded (which I did not particularly car for).

Orin Swift is still going strong with their other amazing blended wines (Dave Phinney, the founder and winemaker, is arguably the best blender out there), though their Locations series is noticeably absent from their site.  If you ever come across an Orin Swift F or I (French or Italian blends, respectively), do not hesitate to pick a few up.  While I'd posted about the Locations I before, I walked away from this tasting with a bottle of F...which has already been consumed.

photo credit

Below is the tasting list from that night.  We also got to taste an INCREDIBLE bottle of Papillion!  

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So on March 11th, I found myself in an amazing wine bar with two amazing people for the longest wine tasting of my life.  We got there at 7:00 and didn't leave until after 11:00!  That was not a typo.  The Orin Swift representative (a job I'd quite enjoy having) and the owner of BottleRock were pouring quite liberally and were incredibly knowledgeable of the wines, the company, and the wine industry in general.  But wine bars and tasting rooms know what they're doing...I walked away with 5 bottles of delicious Orin Swift wine!  My life can be pretty amazing.

Salud, Kittens!
XOXO!!