Des Moines Wine and Food Connection

Casa di Vino Closing

Hello everyone: It is with great trepidation that I announce I’ve decided to close Casa di Vino. During Casa di Vino’s 7 years in business I’ve enjoyed introducing what’s new and interesting in the world of wine to Des Moines. I hope you’ve enjoyed the wines I’ve shared with you. Hopefully some of the wines & food/wine pairings we have presented have opened some eyes and awakened some palates to the joys of wine and all that goes with it. It’s time for me to move on to new challenges.

From Tuesday, May 24 onward Casa di Vino will be running a close-out special on everything in the shop. All wines will be discounted and there will be special case pricing (12 btls.). All accessories & books will be discounted also. Everything must go. All fixtures, racks, pictures, etc. are also available for purchase.

Thank you Des Moines for your support and 7 wonderful years,

Howard Bernstein
Owner, Casa di Vino 

PS: If any of you get the Wine Spectator magazine check out the new issue (6/15) page 10 under "Letters" to see my comments. I'm now twice published.

Vintage?

Vintage. Vintage? What is "vintage"? The word vintage is being thrown around all over the place these days and many of the usages I'm hearing are completely inappropriate. Vintage basically means the grape harvest from one particular year. Vintage is not used to describe a good wine as opposed to bad or inferior wine. There is no "vintage Australia". One does not drink "fine vintage". One may drink a fine vintage though. There are great vintages and there are bad ones. Vintages diferentiate from year to year just like the weather does. The harvest, the growing season, the rainfall differs from year to year so the quality of each vintage differs. And the quality of a vintage in one place varies from the quality of a vintage in another place. The weather in central California in a particular year may be rainy where as the weather in Napa or Sonoma may be fabulous. The grapes and then the wine produced will reflect those differences. When it comes to grapes and wines produced, the weather for a vineyard at the top of one hill will vary from the weather at the bottom of the hill. Combine that with water drainage and sun exposure and you can have two completely different wines from the same region AND the same vintage. Also on the subject of vintage; a wine can not be declared from one particular vintage unless a certain percentage of the grapes in the wine come from that particular vintage. Some regions require all the grapes to be from one particular vintage. Other places declare that only 75 or 80 or 85% of the grapes be from that vintage. If you see a wine that's non-vintage then that means it's blended with juice from multiple years.