Night Work Perks

As the beer guy, I get to taste most of what we consider stocking and shape what actually hits the shelf (Sometimes - If I tasted the limp Schlafly Christmas up the break room, I would have voted against it).

If I happen to arrive a little early when a sales rep calls - or they leave some samples - I have a chance to swirl some wine and hope my palette can catch its representative fruit tones (it doesn't always work). Usually that leaves me subject to our free Saturday tastings, the refuge of many a Nashville cheapskate that has never seen the inside of Grand Cru Wine & Spirits. But it remains the best way to gain rapid knowledge about a half-dozen wines.

Monday brought something on a much larger scale than our little tastings with the reps and Saturdays with the customers. Big-time distributor Horizon Wine & Spirits's spring tasting - below the statue of Athena at the Parthenon, no less - fell on the way to the store during the brief window when I can get away.

Working on healthcare all day means missing out on most of the distributor's seasonal events. Despite all the encouragement I got to check out the fall slate, daytime sampling events tend not to fit with regular 7-4 employment.

This time, I made it fit. Simply adding my name and industry employer to the registry got me in the door, followed quickly by a pour of Dom Perignon - an excellent start, since I never tasted the much-heralded French champagne.

Among the columns, I faced myriad options with 10 minutes to breeze back out. Starting where I left off in Walla Walla with a few Washington State reds, I managed to hit just four of the 3 dozen tables. But we'll chalk it up as quality time.

I met one of the staff from King Estates, sampled their 2008 estate pinot noir and got a little excitement for my planned visit to their grounds in September. On a recommendation, I checked out Curt Van Hooven's table, which hosted the fine Nadia White and Nadia Red (90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc) from California's Laetitia Winery.

Better still was Castellani's "Cinque Stelle" Barolo, a smoking $75 Italian with an astonishing array of flavors (everything from strawberries to mint to tobacco pops up). While that might sound like a high ransom when $10 Italians fill shelves everywhere, every sip heralded its value.

The rapid-fire journey ended with some of South America's best offerings. The Mendoza-produced Malbecs of Luigi Bosca topped everything I drank. Bosca's Malbec DOC is the only of the four certified DOC Malbecs available in the U.S., and it showed. Grown from 75-year-old vines, its plum and cherry richness was complemented by a balanced earthiness, and it never felt as heavy as many Malbecs. The regular Malbec was solid, but hard to compare after tasting its obvious superior.

There might not be time for future distributor shows, but Horizon's offered tastes which I could not duplicate in the break room.