Whole Foods Wine - 2020 Château La Gravière ($9.99)
A sub-$10 white wine for chilling over your long weekend! P.S. - thank you, Mr. Bezos for sharing the fruits of your labor 🙏
TL;DR…
Sometimes a simple $10 bottle of white from your local Whole Foods is all a beautiful long weekend requires.
Pro tip:
Give this bottle a nice and refreshing ice bath and then distribute generously - it goes down easy and is simple to replace.
For your information…
Producer: Château La Gravière
Country: France
Region: Entre-Deux-Mers
Appellation/Sub-Region: Saint-Genès-de-Lombaud
Grapes: Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Muscadelle
Vineyard/Cellar Practices: Bottled on-site
What I Tasted: Pineapple, grapefruit, green apple
Some backstory…
While the point of this newsletter is for us to explore tasty wines with interesting backstories, I also want to toss out the occasional recommendation that is more than likely available to you.
So, this week I headed over to my neighborhood Whole Foods with the goal of finding a sub $10 bottle fit to kick off Memorial Day weekend.
First, let’s get something straight… Do I necessarily love to buy wine from Whole Foods?
No.
I’m lucky enough here in ATL to have numerous spots in my neighborhood where I can buy much more interesting bottles and see the money go straight to people that live in my community - not towards another one of Mr. Bezos’s income streams.
But all of that aside, I do want to occasionally toss out an option that is more widely available to those of you reading this newsletter and not exclusive to a boutique bottle shop.
So, we’re rolling into summer with a Whole Foods bottle of $9.99 Château La Gravière Entre-deux-Mers.
The buying process…
With the point of this newsletter being to share the stories of people that make, sell, and drink wine, I fully plan to let that be the focus 90% of the time.
However, cases like this where we’re working with a lower-cost wine from a large grocery/package store, and producer information is hard to come by, my idea is to pivot and focus on what made this wine stand out on the shelf next to 200+ other bottles.
A few things I immediately knew when seeking out this week’s wine were 1) I wanted a bottle of white for the long weekend, 2) I didn’t necessarily want bubbles, and 3) I didn’t want to spend more than $10.
So, after making my way through the gut-biome/aromatherapy forest and around the packs of finance dads stocking up on $12 cucumber waters, I settled in to my trusty white wine section and began scanning tags for a price less than $10.
With my self-applied parameters, I was left with about ten to fifteen viable options from which I began reading labels (see last week’s post for a refresh!) to determine which one had the highest potential to quench my thirst for a glass of cold & crisp white wine.
Finally, after much label reading deliberation, and a touch of Googling the Entre-Deux-Mers region of France, I settled on our bottle of Château La Gravière because 1) it met my sub $10 criteria (+1pt), 2) the label listed the AOC and vineyard (+2pts), and 3) it was still a bottle of crisp white wine made to kick-off a four-day weekend.
Now the wine…
Did this $10 bottle from the bottle shelf of Whole Foods make me reconsider everything I think I know about wine and jump for joy? I’m sad to report that’s a “No.”
But am I sitting here on this sunny Saturday afternoon with a bit of red on my shoulders and an album on the Sonos considering making a trip back to the store for another bottle of this chillable French white? Absolutely.
Everything about this wine was exactly what it should have been - it went down easy, it gave enough acidity to send a citrus-forward punch through your tastebuds, and when it runs out too early you can easily replace it for ten simple George Washington’s…or two Lincoln’s…or one Hamilton if you roll like that.
Overall, this bottle is one you want beside you + some friends while basking under the sun on this beautiful Memorial Day weekend.
So how about I go ahead and toss some tunes your way, send you towards your nearest Whole Foods for a bottle of this - or some other - white wine, and then let you get off your phone and be present with what’s around you?
For the record…
Normally I look for some theoretical link between the wine I’m drinking and the music I’m recommending (similarities in origin, characteristics, artwork, etc.), but I’m sitting here listening to Vampire Weekend’s 2019 record, Father of the Bride, and goddamn if it’s not just about perfect to pair with anything.
Vampire is good enough to carry you through a 3-day weekend on their own, but adding a splash of Danielle Haim and Steve Lacy in too…you’re about to have it made.
What else can I say…
I need say nothing more than make plans with a friend, get yourself a fun bottle of to sip on, listen to some Vampire Weekend, put that phone away, and enjoy an extra day of basking in the sunshine.
See y’all next week -
Cheers!