I attended a wine tasting here that was won at an auction. My friend won, and the experience was delightful, and doubly delightful, as the item was donated to the Asheville Music School. Full disclosure: I am a board member there. So thank you so much to Metro Wines for the donation, but this will be a review of my experience, unbiased, regardless of whether the experience was donated, because my friend did pay for the experience. She just happened to invite me!

This was one of the most delightful evenings we have had in Asheville a long time. I’ve attended so very many wine tastings, having lived in San Francisco for 10 years and frequenting the wine country on many weekends. In addition, we have friends in Long Island, and we go to the wineries up there, and we have been to Châteauneuf de Pape region and had wine tastings in France, and even enjoy the North Carolina Vineyards, because they are fun with their muscadines and scuppernongs and their small town goodness. I’ve also attended tastings with food pairings and tastings where the experience is focused on a particular producer or maker, or even varietal. An evening with Antinori or Caymus for example. So I guess I’m trying to say this was not my first rodeo.

Somehow, though, Andy Hale at Metro managed to make the whole experience feel fresh and interesting. He chose some really unusual varietals and smaller boutique Vineyards and wine makers, and as such, created a delightful experience of wines that I normally would not have sought. So kudos to his choices, but also kudos to his presentation, his sense of humor, his style. We are a group of Gen Xers, a bit jaded, still hopeful. We are artists and community activists, readers and poets, tech nerds and lobbyists. We have all lived in Asheville for decades. The “newcomer“ having lived here 17 years. Together the eight of us collectively have lived in Asheville over 160 years. I know that’s an odd way to put it, but we all have so much history in this town. That said, we can be a bit rowdy, sassy, interruptive, etc. So Andy handled that element as well. His sense of humor matched ours, his timing matched ours. He met us where we were.

I emcee a lot of of the events, and I’m on mic a lot, and I am a semi-retired college professor, and I understand if you’ve got a crowd/room that is talkative, it’s difficult to capture their attention and still be interesting. Andy managed to do this with grace and humor, and he still managed to educate us on a lot of the wines. He was a perfect fit for our group.

Also, at a lot of past wine tastings, often the same information is recycled over and over again. Not so here. Andy’s stories were interesting, delving into the actual producers, notes on biodynamic wines, stories about the makers. My only complaint, and it’s a Picayune one, is it would be great to have just a couple of more slices of cheese. Since the cheese was pairing so beautifully with the whites at the beginning (especially the wines he introduced us to that straddled the Swiss border) everybody gobbled up their cheese on the first two tasting. Perhaps leave those cheeses out for the whites with the crackers, and then bring in something a little bit different for the reds to prevent the group from eating all of the cheese with the white pairings.
Regardless, bravo Andy and Metro Wines! What a fun event!

And thanks for supporting youth music education through your donation to the auction.

 

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News Release: Thursday, March 7th, 2024

News Release: Tuesday, February 27th, 2024