Wine Tasting Notes

Charlie’s Weekly Wine-ing

Guests are arriving daily and I am hot on the trail to find new wines to share with them at our Sandwich Inn. The Belfry now has a formal tasting ever Wednesday, which gives me a close to home opportunity to taste new wines. It is also a time to see wine loving friends that I have not seen all winter.

Last week, the Belfry and Cellar 55 co-hosted a tasting featuring the Michael and David Winery and presented by Polly, the very knowledgeable Sales Consultant from Classic Wine Imports. Brothers Michael Phillips and David Phillips are the co-owners of this Lodi, CA. winery where their family has farmed since 1860. The family survived the dark days of Prohibition by selling their grapes around the country with detailed instructions on “how not to have the grapes turn into wine.” This early sense of humor and creative marketing can still be seen today in the wines we tasted.

We started the tasting with the 2010 Seven Heavenly Chardonnay, a lightly oaked, crisp wine that was paired with Garlic Shrimp. The tasting notes say this is the sister bottling to their better-known Seven Deadly Zins but personally I liked the Zin much better. This white was quickly forgotten as we jumped to the reds.

Our first red served was the 2010 Petite Petit paired with Yellow Fin Tuna. I have had the last three vintages of this wine and have loved it every time. The 2010 stands right up to past years and is still a wonderful blend of 85% Petite Sirah and 15% Petit Verdot. The wine was big and too big for the tuna, but I still enjoyed it very much.

Next we moved on to the 2007 6th Sense Syrah paired with bacon wrapped pork tenderloin. I had not had this wine before, but it fits right in with Michael and David’s other cleverly named wines; it was very big and went great with the smokey pork.

We finished with the 2009 Earthquake Cabernet Sauvignon paired with a chocolate mousse. Who doesn’t like Cab and chocolate, truly a match made in Heaven.


So, it was a lovely night of new wines and old friends. Come and stay with us at our Cape Cod bed and breakfast and let me introduce you to some new wines and we may even become old friends.

Happy Wine-ing

Charlie Preus, the Innkeeper’s Assistant and Wine Steward at the 1750 Inn at Sandwich Center, Sandwich, Cape Cod Massachusetts