Evodia

 

What a bargain here!!  This wine hails from the appellation of Calatayud.  Where in the world is Calatayud?  Near the city of Aragon in northeastern Spain.  Evodia is sourced from Garnacha from the villages of  Atea, Acered, and Alarba. Located in the Sierra Santa Cruz, these steep sites (up to 25%) have various exposures but share similar soils – slate and quartzite over clay. At an average elevation of 900 meters above sea level, these vineyards are also among the highest sites within the province of Aragon. This unique terroir and the old vines of Garnacha rooted in it are the origins of Evodia.

Hand harvested, partially destemmed but not crushed 20 day fermentation in concrete vats, 7 day gentle post-fermentation maceration.  6 months in concrete tanks (80%) and neutral French and American oak barrels, and concrete eggs (20%).

This wine get constant scored of 90 plus points which for a bottle of wine that cost me $12.00 at Two Old Hags is a steal in my book.

Here is what the esteemed Wine Advocate had to say about the current vintage

“The nose opens up nicely in the glass and is quite aromatic and floral, exuberant, with a heady touch of ripe fruit. It’s young and tasty, tender and pleasant to drink, with a forward personality. A real bargain. Rated 90+

For me the nose is full of fruit and spices.  Color is dark and deep.  The mouth is full of delicious fruit, blueberries, blackberries, smooth tannins that leave you looking for the next sip.  What a great bottle to take to your holiday events this one will be a true crowd pleaser for sure.

Cheers, 

The Village Wino

All wines are purchased at Two Old Hags unless other wise noted.

 

Chateau de Pizay Beaujolais Blanc

A thousand years of history. Gosmard, the first Seigneur or Lord of Pizay, had two towers built in 1030 A.D. His descendants lived in the Château until 1916.  Today, the estate’s 80 ha (197 acres) of vineyards produce grapes for six different appellations: white Beaujolais, rosé Beaujolais, red Beaujolais, Régnié, Morgon (three cuvées) and Brouilly Château de Saint-Lager, which has been owned by the estate since 1998. 

As an appellation, Beaujolais Blanc makes up less than 5% of total Beaujolais production. Estates often tended a reserve vineyard planted with Chardonnay, the product of which adorned the high table.

 

A rare treasure in the Beaujolais region, of singular grace and charm; Beaujolais Blanc could be seen as the hidden face of the Pizay vineyard, the Château’s pearl.

Partly aged in wood, this softly textured, creamy wine has attractive peach and melon flavors. The floral character of the wine and light acidity make it very ready to drink now. So unexpected are its shimmering robe and scents, that any encounter with this wine means love at first sip. This is a buy it by the case wine. $29.99 with a 10% discount for case purchases.

Cheers,

The Villages Wino

 

All wines reviewed here were purchased at Two Old Hags wine shop unless otherwise stated.

 

 

Lopez Legacy Restaurant

 

I have to start out this review by saying this could be my favorite place to eat in the Villages.  Now I will recount our visit last night. 

Arrived right at our reservation time and were seated without delay.  Our server Maritza is always our favorite always smiling and laughing and happy to see our group. Drinks arrived and she went over the specials.  Appetizers ordered.  They arrived hot and perfect.  We even added one as the others arrived and it came so fast the others had not even made it all the way around the table!

The dinner orders were taken.  Maritza always puts the food in so the ladies get their food first then the guys.  All of the food arrived and was hot and great.  We are a bit difficult because members of our group kind of change things like no mashed potatoes double veggies no starch but spinach instead, some of the ladies are dressing on the side all of these little changes are executed without hitch.

Last night I got the Chateaubriand.  The steak arrived perfectly cooked to medium rare.  With a tasty demi glaze that was a great match for the hot bread for cleaning the plate up!

My table mates got the pork rib eye, cooked medium rare, cooked perfectly and served hot and ready with his special order mushrooms as well.  The other side of me got the Veal Meatloaf a crowd favorite for sure s dependable dish every night.  We love he fried onions that top the dish. All at the table of 11 were very satisfied.

I highly recommend Lopez Legacy. 

Cheers,

 

The Villages Wino

Lopez Legacy Restaurant

Location: 17135 Buena Vista Blvd, 

The Villages, FL 32162

Telephone: (352) 753-1475

Email: Suleimanlegacyinc@gmail.com

Blue Fin

 

The wife and I found ourselves in the Brownwood area this afternoon and decided to give Blue Fin a try for lunch.  We were sitting outside right away by a smiling personable young lady.  Once seated our server was right on the spot asking for drinks.  We order a bottle of wine, more on that later.  Looking over the menu there were a lot of great choices for someone who doesn’t eat meat, the wife.  We made of choices and ordered.  The food came in a very timely manner and was beautifully presented.  Props to the kitchen because it was very busy in the restaurant.  The wife’s crispy Fish Tacos with fries, Me Pesto Cobb salad.  The fish tacos were fantastic huge pieces of perfectly fired Cod atop a well stacked crispy Taco shell. The fries were top notch piping hot and seasoned with just the right amount seasoning salt, add some mayo for dipping and all was great.  The Pesto Cobb Salad arrived as ordered, sans cucumbers. I normally do not like a dressed salad because it is either overdressed or undressed.  This time they got it right.  The salad was full of great crunch, smoked corn kernels, bacon.  As well as cherry tomatoes, Village Grown greens, carrots, and avocado, one of my favorite salad ingredients.  It was delicious and very filling. We both couldn’t find anything that wasn’t spot on with either dish.

 

We ordered a bottle of 83 Rose. The “83” refers to the department number of the Var, the winery's home county in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. We found the wine to be onion skin in color.  On the nose we got, hints of strawberry, peaches with a slight herbal note.  On the palate it was delightful, beautifully balanced between fruit and acidity lovely finish of strawberries and raspberries. Highly recommend this one if you see it.

Enjoy,

The Village Wino

 

Blue Fin

2738 Brownwood Blvd

The Villages, FL 32163

352-571-5344

Lopez Legacy

 

My goodness if you haven't been here GO!!

The restaurant is one of the best, if not the best restaurant in the villages.  The service and food are second to none. 

On our most recent visit we had Calamari. Perfectly fried crisp and hot upon arrival with a dipping sauce you could drink!

The wife got the tuna appetizer for dinner and I got the Pork Shank.  The tuna was perfectly rare.  Served over an asian slaw that was dressed just right.  Wasabi surrounded the plate with an odd addition a blueberry on top of each dot.  However, it proved to be genius as the blueberry matched great with the sinus clearing action of the wasabi.

The pork shank arrived it was  huge, (a villagers dream lunch tomorrow easily)  however, I choose to eat it all it was fall off the bone tender.  The vegetable sides were green beans and carrots all done well.  Not mushy but crip and hot as well.

I highly recommend going to Legacy.  But know it isn't a secret how good this place is they are almost always on a 15-20 wait.  Make your reservations they honor them within 5 minutes always.

Happy dining

The Village Wino

  

Hemingway's @ Havana Country Club

I have been hearing that the new owners of Hemingway’s have really raised the dining bar here in The Villages.  Well we had a chance to eat there last night after our Saturday couples golf outing and I am here to tell you the rumors are absolutely true!  What a meal!!!

We were sat right away and our Server Victor was right there.  He explained all of the specials and took Drink orders as we browsed the menu. One of the appetizers’s caught my eye.  I love escargot.  But this was so different I had to give it a try it was flash fried, served with flash fried spinach, and dressed with a Myer lemon sriracha sauce.  It arrives and I am blown away the bowl is filled with fried spinach and the snails are under that the dish is slightly warm a perfect temperature.  It was beyond delicious the snails were perfectly cooked nice and crispy.  The greens wonderfully crunchy and the dressing was simply out of bounds.  A prefect escargot dish in my mind.  My wife gets a beet salad that has this spicy dressing and wonderfully loaded with sweet beets and lots of goodies.  The entrees come. 

The Wife gets the Hawaii Tuna Poke.  A nice size portion for her and perfectly done.  The Tuna was rare, spicy, and delicious.  I get the bone in pork chop.  I was impressed they asked for a temperature on my chop.  I asked for medium, the server confirmed that meant a warm pink center, I agreed and that is exactly how it arrived. The chop came with greens beans Al Dente almost too much, but ok.  Also came with this wonderful mango cherry cobbler than was a perfect accompaniment to the sweet chop.  An entrée that needs to be mentioned is the one our golfing partners got. Shrimp and Grits, my goodness what a dish.; Cheese grits fired under the broiler then large shrimp ringing the plate with a chorizo sausage ragout in the middle of it all.  WOW is all I can say. 

A nice wine list is offered. We had friends eating with us that brought a bottle and were charged a $15 corkage fee.

Now this meal was not inexpensive.  For the two of us it was over $100 which is very expensive for The Villages.  But if you are looking for that white table cloth experience without the drive to Ocala or Orlando this is it.

The Village Wino gives Hemingway’s ★★★★☆

Hemingway’s

2484 Odell Circle, The Villages, FL 32162

 352-430-3200

Truro Cellars Rose

Truro Cellars Lighthouse Series Rose

A small personal story/rant if I might?

When I was working as the Director of a large wine division one thing that used to set me off was the reading newspaper reviews of wines not in the market where the paper was sold.  (If you read The Daily Sun you know what I am talking about the wines are rarely if ever available around the Villages.)  Now let me qualify that.  The man who wrote for our local paper was and still is a genius.  He today has an extremely successful wine blog called Bigger than your head.  I highly suggest you frequent this site it is so educational and funny as well.  But I digress.

 When Fredric would write about samples he received that were not in our market and give them a rave review the calls would start.

The Wine Shop owner: Where can I get this wine? 

Me:  It’s not in our market! 

The Wine Shop owner: What? It was in the paper today!!! 

Me. I know that column is printed in 40 newspapers!  It is available in some of those markets and some not, we are the some not!!! And the conversations would go south from there.

I spoke to Fredric about this one time and he explained it perfectly to me and I never really got upset after the conversation.  He explained he had to think of all of his markets not just Memphis.  He told me that his column had to be relevant in all of his papers and the wine people of Memphis did travel and when he recommended a wine not here they in their travels could find that wine in a market where the wine was available and bring it back home to enjoy. Makes sense after he educated me on his process.  And this was not the only time I was educated by him.  He is such a nice guy.  I grew to call him a friend which made me proud. 

That leads me to the wine of the day.  A wonderful rose from Cape Cod!  Yep Cape Cod.  Truro Cellars the wine is 92% Cayuga and 8% Cab Franc.  A real quaffer for sure.  Strawberries hints in the nose and on the palate make this one a keeper for sure. Semi sweet with a light acid component to help the finish we enjoyed this bottle before dinner and all agreed it was a nice wine to start the evening with.  The Lighthouse bottle we believe can be returned to the winery for a small deposit return.  This one will never see that as it now will be our Olive Oil container!

Truro Cellars Rose good if you can get it!

The Villages Wino gives the Truro Cellars ★★★☆☆

 If you make it to Cape Cod buy a bunch and bring back one for The Villages Wino!!!

Truro Vineyards
PO Box 834
11 Shore Road (Route 6A)
North Truro, MA 02652
Phone: (508)487-6200
Email: info@trurovineyardsofcapecod.com

Cheers,

The Villages Wino