Letter to the Editor – Wine Time? Shop Local!
Your Sunday, July 9 “Wine Time” article didn’t mention that Asheville has the absolute best wine clubs right here. There are at least three in town. Ours has all of the pros and none of the cons listed for the national clubs you mentioned. But your article missed one con we don’t have and two pros we do have. Con: all of these national clubs have expensive shipping fees. If they say there are no fees, trust me, it’s coming out of the quality of the wine. And the two pros: local clubs are a better value, and all of your club dollars stay in Asheville and support your community. So, consider the local clubs before sending your dollars out of town and NC.
John Kerr, co-owner, Metro Wines
Sommelier and wine shop owner Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman), a British expatriate living in Paris, is to increase his business. He concocts a plan to hold a blind taste-test intended to introduce Parisians to quality wines coming from elsewhere in the world. Spurrier travels to the not-yet-famous Napa Valley in search of contestants for his Judgment of Pairs taste test, where he meets vintner Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) of Chateau Montelena. Barrett wants no part in it, believing it to be a set-up designed by the French to humiliate New World wine producers. Barrett's son, Bo (Chris Pine), secretly passes Spurrier a couple of bottles of the Chateau's Chardonnay for the competition. Pretty and nonconformist university graduate student Sam Fulton (Rachel Taylor) arrives at Chateau Montelena seeking an internship, and is promptly put to work in the vineyards.