Wine times in Cincinnati

This past weekend saw the arrival and subsequent departure of this year's edition of the Cincinnati Wine Festival. We went down on Friday during a trade preview of the event and sampled the wares of most of the distributors in Ohio. We also had a fantastic dinner at Daveed's at 934 in Mount Adams, a restaurant I highly recommend you try if you ever find yourself in that neighborhood. Anyway, at the Festival, 600 wines were on display (I spit...mostly), and I have to say I was excited to taste a few that were new to me which you'll see appearing in our shop over the next few weeks.

I was really excited about the wines from JAQK Cellars. The packaging is a little bit gimmicky (okay, a lot gimmicky), but is very well done. And no one could argue with the quality of the wines. They were fantastic. I especially loved the Pearl Handle Chardonnay and the Black Clover Merlot. This stuff is new to Ohio and is not in stock at the distributor yet, but keep your eyes pealed for these great wines. I know I'll be bringing some in as soon as possible.

On the value front, there were also some great finds. El Vilosell is a northern Spanish blend that has power, finesse, grip and elegance inside the bottle, with a great looking label, to boot. And it costs like eighteen beans. Forefront, a Pine Ridge label, was also showing an out of this world value Napa Cab that is now under $20. Both of those should be here any second now.

Those are just a few of the highlights I'm excited about. Here's what we're tasting this week.