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Any Wine on This Island?

Written By: Dylan York on Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Dylan's palate training may end abruptly when wine complications arise.

My first trip to the local market was quite scary when searching for
wine. It looked as if Carlo Rossi and Mondavi had a monopoly on the
place before Hurricane Ivan, (three years ago) and then forgot about
it. All I saw were dusty bottles of 2003 Woodbridge Sauvignon Blanc
that were now orange in color and oozing what looked like marmalade.
As for the jug wine it was a least standing upright and appeared to
maintain its fake ruby tone. After looking a bit more I found some
older vintage Torres wines from Spain. Although the 2001 Gran Coronas
Cabernet was a good wine, judging by how they were stored I could
taste the stewed tomato just by looking at them. But wait! I spotted
a 2005 vintage Sangre du Toro, a blend of Syrah and Garnacha.
Thinking this might be the best I was going to get, I bought it.

Next I tried another market very similar to that grocery store in your
neighborhood that was three upgrades behind all the rest.
Surprisingly I found a broad selection of Chilean wines from Concha Y
Toro (There seems to be a trend with wine and bulls here). Again not
my first choice but they were current vintages and in good shape.
Living in this part of the world there is no doubt that I should find
good quality Argentinean and Chilean wines. This will definitely come
in handy when I start reviewing South America.

Later that day by accident I wandered into a mall of sorts and found
an actual wine shop. They had Veuve Clicquot, Laurent Perrier, and
Bollinger Champagnes as well as many white burgundies, Rhone wines,
and Malbec. Things were looking up. After speaking with the manager
she told me about another shop on the island owned by a wine importer
that had a very large selection. I was intrigued and relieved at the
same time. My biggest fear with this move was not being able to taste
different wines to continue training my palate. Of course, I know
that I am not going to find the rare boutique wines that I have come
to love, but at least I can obtain wines that are true to form that I
can study with.

Tomorrow I am going to Lance Aux Epines, another part of the island,
to find the wine shop that is owned by an English gentleman that also
imports wines. Good connections are everything in this business. Wish
me luck.

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