Last week while I was in Concord, for a sales meeting I asked, my brother David, our VP of Operations, to start sending me a different bottle of wine every week. I told him that each week I was going to try to create an experience around each bottle of wine. Sometimes it will be with my wife Danielle and other times it will be with friends or family.

To get this new blog concept started David sent me down a bottle of Robert Biale Vineyards “Party Line” Zinfandel 2009 from NapaValley. I brought it home on Friday from work and put it on the kitchen counter. My wife kept asking about the bottle all weekend.

Danielle has been a fan of Biali since the first time we met David Pramick (one of the owners of Biali) out for dinner at one of her favorite restaurants Samos (sadly it is now out of business). We tasted through all the wines with David P. and she was hooked. The next time the wines entered into her life, is when our friend Aaran asked her if we had ever heard of Biali Black Chicken. Danielle told her that not only had she heard of it but told her our company has the exclusive distribution rights in the State of South Carolina. We were able to tell Aaran where to find the wine since our new allocation had just arrived. Aaran bought half a case saying it was her favorite wine of all times. It feels great when somebody gives one of our wines such a high compliment.

I held Danielle off all weekend from opening the bottle on our counter until Sunday when my children and I went to Piggly Wiggly and bought all the ingredients for our first homemade chili of the fall. We bought tons of peppers, tomatoes, beef and beans and began slicing, dicing and simmering. By 10am the chili was made in a 5 gallon pot and already beginning to fill the house with the smell of fall food and football season. The chili simmered from 10am through the tough Panthers loss and all the way until 5:30pm.

Before dinner we finally opened the Biali “Party Line” Zinfandel. When grabbing the glasses we got we started talking about what would be the best glass to drink the wine out of. We pulled five different types of glasses…some with stems, without stems, Stozle, Ridel and no name glasses. Every glass made the wine smell differently therefore each glass taste differently. Some glasses made it seem like the wine had no nose and very little taste. Other glasses made the wine smell amazing, but did little for the taste, but the best glass was the one with the biggest opening, it made the nose exude ripe rich flavors of cherry and raspberry with hints of chocolate. After an hour of smelling sipping and tasting we served the chili with the wine and the pairing was awesome.

Next time you try a bottle of wine pull out all your glasses and see how it changes your wine in each glass.

We also had a delicious homemade pudding pie with graham cracker crust for dessert. I wish I could tell you how the wine went with the dessert but by the time the dessert was served the wine was gone. So remember to make every bottle of wine, while it lasts, an experience.