For years we have been taking the staff to distilleries in Kentucky to select barrels of Bourbon. For new employees it is a rite of passage; for the rest of us, it's just a special treat. We travel with 6-8 staff members to Buffalo Trace at least twice a year, selecting barrels of Buffalo Trace, Weller, Rock Hill, Eagle Rare or Blanton's. The last couple of years we've added Four Roses for their single barrel bourbons and Heaven Hill for Evan Williams and Elijah Craig..

We schedule the trip far enough ahead that the Master Distiller can select 4-5 barrels of each Bourbon for us to sample. The distillery staff is constantly tasting the barrels, and he wants to be sure we pick from barrels that are ready to bottle. So far, we have managed to time things out so that we only select three different Bourbons per trip! (That means tasting up to 15 different barrels!!)

On arrival we all head to the barrel room where the barrels are lined up for us. They draw two sets of samples from each barrel... one at barrel strength (that'll wake you up at 10 in the morning!) and the other cut to bottle strength. The staff then tastes thru the samples of one brand as they choose - barrel strength or cut or both. We really take this seriously... no talking allowed as we sample... we want individuals to vote for the barrel they like, not what the boss likes or their co-worker likes. Everybody votes for their top two choices, we tally the votes and, darn it, have to taste the top two vote getters again to select the best barrel. We then go thru the same process with the next brand and the next. After tasting 12-15 barrels of bourbon, (this really is a tough job!) the crew heads out on a tour of the facility - good education and a chance to walk off all that bourbon. After lunch at the distillery, we typically head for another round of tasting at another distillery - sometimes we even make it without getting lost! (The first trip from Buffalo Trace to Four Roses took 3 hours and 180 miles... according to MapQuest the trip is 35 minutes to go 21 miles!)

An interesting phenomenon occurs on every trip... by the time we arrive home, everyone voted for the winning barrel. Not too sure how that happens since we have had only on unanimous vote (last year's Elijah Craig 18 yr).

If you are interested in joining us, call one of the stores for more information... or watch for future postings in the Events section of the web or Facebook.

Thanks for checking back in with Todd, your friendly Kahn's wine guru.  Today, we're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects: Champagne.

Our Experience: Yesterday, we were thirsty.  It probably doesn't shock any of you to hear that from time to time we drink wine while we are working.  Call it 'education' or 'staff training'...call it whatever you want, but it happens.  Anyway, Paul decided to be a good guy yesterday (he was thirsty) so he bought us a bottle of Gaston Chiquet Champagne to share.  Gaston Chiquet is a Grower Champagne...we'll talk more about that later.  Every employee at our North Willow location tried it and I have to be honest, it certainly brightened my day.  The Gaston Chiquet was a study of elegance and complexity.  Sadly, Paul made sure that we didn't drink it all, because he wanted to share some with his wife Deb--probably a good move for Paul.  Just so you know, Deb is a pretty tough sell on Champagne; however, when I talked to Paul this morning, he told me that she loved it and he had one job today: BUY MORE.  That Deb loved the Gaston Chiquet would be enough for me to try anything, but I thought this experience would be a good thing to write about. My official notes are below. 

Gaston Chiquet Carte Verte Brut:  92 pts.  Golden color.  Citrusy nose with a brief note of ginger and loads of minerals-I mean loads.  On the palate, we find the same lemony citrus flavors accompanied by crisp acidity and a palate-captivating earthy complexity.  The wine finished creamy, but clean.  Drink now. $48.99 at all Kahn's locations.

What are Grower Champagnes?  Grower Champagnes are sparkling wines produced in the Champagne region where the producer and the grower are the same entity.  You might think this would be fairly common, but you would be incorrect.  Click here for excerpts from a Grower Champagne seminar by Kevin Pike and Terry Theise.

How do I identify a Grower Champagne from a regular Champagne? 

It's easy.  Look for the letters RM on the label.  On most Champagnes, you will find the two letters NM which stands for Negociant Manipulant.  NMs are producers who buy grapes to produce their wines.  Grower Champanges have RM on their labels; RM stands for Recoltant Manipulant, meaning that these producers grow the grapes that they use to make their wines. When you find RM, you have located a Grower Champagne...but Grower Champagnes are a tiny % of all Champagne produced, so be patient because they are often tricky to find.

THE REALITY OF THE CHAMPAGNE REGION

• Negociants and cooperatives produce 80% of Champagne, but only own 10% of the vineyards....Sounds fishy, doesn't it? Where is all of their fruit coming from then?
• Well, the Champagne AOC is the largest in France, and producers often source fruit for Champagnes from 80-100 growers peppered here and there throughout Champagne's 85,000 acre growing region...
• So...can Champagne really taste of the place where it's from when the fruit is sourced from 80-100 different vineyards dispersed over 85,000 acres?

THE TRUTH is that Champagne still tastes like Champagne, even when it's sourced from the various terroirs in the region, but only to a point.

WHY BUY GROWER CHAMPAGNES?

Grower Champagnes literally taste of the place where the grapes were grown.  There is something comforting when you can look out of a winery's window and know that THE GRAPES IN THESE VINEYARDS MAKE THE WINES FROM THIS WINERY.  Don't take that for granted, because it is much less common than you might think.

Grower Champagnes are wonderful because growers aren't trying to sell you their wine with a cute label or a made-up story.  To grower/producers, the wine they produce is really their wine-from grape to bottle.  It is a product of the land they love and it is a reflection of their hard work. There's something really special about that, especially in a world where we are constantly bombarded with images that entice us to buy stuff.

The vineyards at Gaston Chiquet....

The Price: Grower Champagnes are often the same price or 10-20% above your garden variety Champagnes that we all know and love....

If you try these delicious wines, I promise you'll be happy.

Kahn's 2011 Battle of Belgium Recap!

We set it up. We hyped it up. You drank it up!

It's a bit overdue, but for all those deeply invested and those with just a casual fascination here's all that went down in the inaugural Battle of Belgium.

We wanted to come up with an original idea for a tasting event that would give people a chance to experience a significant number of beers they might not normally give a swirl. What do people like? Beer and this time of year... the excitement of big tournaments! What can we offer people? Beer... excellent high quality Belgian beer to taste FOR FREE! Ok, let's combine those and make it blind!

After we created the idea we discovered that there were a few other concepts out there that were similar (this one for example http://t.co/vsce0kx), but none that really offered you what we were planning on offering.  An 8 day, 64 Belgian beer, head to head, blind tasting tournament! It sounded ambitious, but with A LOT of help from distributors and significant positive feedback we continued onward.

Using Kahn's beer sales data from 2010, BeerAdvocate and RateBeer scores and our own staff's blind tasting ratings of 70+ beers we compiled our bracket (http://tinyurl.com/65cbss2). We did have to and eliminate a few due to limited availability , but still ended up with 64 of about the best 90 or so Belgian style beers we carry. So many favorites, but still a lot of lesser known ones we were excited to see how people reacted to them.

The BOB begins!

Round 1 featured 16 'upsets'. 50% of the match-ups, but only one of the 'top 8' seeds goes down. It was Hoegaarden, a beer that primarily had its #2 seed thanks to its massive sales. Delirium Tremens wasn't scared and won handily! The first round highlighted one criticism people (customers and those in the industry) had about our set up... 'why aren't the brackets set up by style?' Well, when are tournaments set up like that? Are there really enough representatives from each style to compile 'fair' brackets? (Quads and Tripels made up a larger percentage of the higher rated beers) AND, most importantly, why would you want to eliminate the main fun factor of the entire concept? How will beers of differing styles fare against each other? A prime example of this was our #1 overall seed Rochefort 10 (quad) v. Lindeman's Cuvee Rene (gueuze). Complete opposites, but we were pretty interested in finding out what people would think in our format! Sure, it's not fair if you want to look at it as a supreme way to judge beer, but that was not at all what we were going for. These beers are all good or they wouldn't be included in the first place. Let's just have some fun with them now!

As the event went on we started seeing a few trends. People love high gravity Belgian beer whether they can see the label or not. This certainly wasn't unexpected. Tripels and Quads were getting the job done! Of the 31 total breweries with beers in the tourney, 5 breweries really set themselves apart from the crowd, and 1 in particular. St. Bernardus was by far the most dominant brewery in the entire tournament. It landed 6 beers in the field and 2 of the final 4 and the winning beer, Abt 12! Goose Island was second in that department with 5 beers in, 3 in the final 16 and had Matilda place 2^nd overall. The other three breweries that all advanced their beers quite far were Rochefort (Rochefort 8 placed 3^rd overall), The Bruery (Tradewinds Tripel was a major hit with voters) and Unibroue (look at Canada putting 2 beers in the final 8!).

When you narrowed our big ol' tourney down to the last 4, it was a heated 4-way, steel cage match of brown-bagged belgo-beer! St. Bernardus' tag team of Abt 12 and Pater 6 occupied 2 corners, staring down Rochefort 8 and Goose Island Matilda. 'Let's get it on!' Pater 6 was the only surprise entrant in the final and though it got in some punches, finished 4^th with 22 votes. After owning the Bruges bracket, Rochefort 8 ran out of steam and finished 3^rd with 23 votes. 1^st and 2^nd places went back and forth all night. Matilda actually won at our Keystone and Downtown stores, but did so poorly at North Willow that Abt 12 was able to rally and take the first ever Battle of Belgium championship!

Here's the final bracket: http://tinyurl.com/4ctwhkq

Overall, the event was a major success. Goals were met. People experienced new beer, beer was bought, we learned what beers people really enjoy and it created a buzz and interesting conversations about these amazing beers. We couldn't have asked for much more and can't wait for next year! Do we stay with the Belgian theme? Expand to 68 beers? (Ha!)  Hone it back a touch and do more, smaller tournaments? It's still up in the air, so feel free to let us know your thoughts. What'd we do right? What'd we screw up? What should we do next? Tell us! Thanks to all of you who participated!

Anyway, let's talk about some actual booze...Behold, the beer for Champagne drinkers the Oud Beersel Gueuze...

Conflictedwineo Rating: A Pours beautifully from the bottle with lots of head. Beautiful amber/gold/orange color. Make sure to put your nose into it, I mean really get in there and you will understand the essence of Gueuze...sourness, but not oh, my word I just ate an entire lemon sourness, just sourness. It's there and it holds the rest of the ale together. The Oud Beersel is not a beer for hopheads, but you do pick up a faint hop aroma on the nose that is delivered on the palate. This particular bottle had a subtle tartness which, I am told increases with age. I would have liked it to be more tart, but it certainly delivered a subtle, funky, interesting aroma that is common for gueuze. Wine lovers, there are simply few beers that are as vinous as lambics and gueuze. If you're thinking of getting into beer but have been a wine drinker for years, then try these beer styles. You will not regret it.

Plus...the biggest bonus of all: price. The Oud Beersel Gueuze will set you back about $16.99, and while this is certainly more than the average beer, it is way less expensive than even an entry level Champagne which generally starts at $39.99. Thus, Gueuze offers an outstanding value. In fact, it sounds so good that I'm getting thirsty for one right now...if only I weren't at work! I will tell you though...next time I'm feeling the need for some bubbly, I'm going to think twice before dropping $40 on a Champagne. Plus I already have another Oud Beersel waiting for me in my fridge at home.