The weather lately has been sunny and dry, and this past weekend was September warm, the kind of weather that brings people together and makes for funny stories.
While I was pressing last Sunday in my driveway in shirtsleeves, a guy from Blackbird wine shop walked by. He was handing out fliers to publicize this new shop off NE Fremont street here in Beaumont village in Portland. I was helping my kids across the street and he walked up and asked if I liked wine. I laughed and said, are you kidding? Come with me.
Up the driveway we walked and I showed him what I was up to. And his jaw dropped and he said, I can't believe this. Can I take pictures? Out comes the cell phone, I'm posing next to the barrel I was cleaning, and maybe I'll be in the store's newsletter as an obscure neighborhood winemaker.
How's the shop? Not bad at all. In fact, great for the neighborhood but not a geek's paradise. Sure, they have the Muscadet of Marc Oliver and the Alsatian wines of Barmes Beucher. But it's more a great place to buy a last minute bottle than a must stop for wine geeks. You'll get a good producer and a good example of where ever the wine's from, but there's not much depth in the offerings. Not that there should be, and perhaps the collection will grow in time. Still, it's a good shop with well picked wines and I'm glad to see it in the neighborhood. And they have free tastings. How can you beat free?
2 comments:
Thanks for the regular posting.
Regarding this Blackbird wineshop, I would be glad to have a shop with Marc Ollivier and Barmes Beucher nearby. I don't (here near Grasse, in Provence).
Of course I have tremendous facilities for finding Provence wines :o)
Cheers.
Eric, thanks for posting from France. Very cool to have readers all over the world. Yes, we are spoiled in Portland with the variety of wines available for what is a mid-sized American city. That said, you can get Marc Ollivier's wines at many supermarkets here. So as crazy as it might seem, a wine shop needs to dig even deeper into the world of wine to truly stand out. Otherwise you have a shop with wines, no matter how good, that you can get elsewhere, maybe cheaper. Blackbird has a nice mix, so I wish them luck. It can't be easy with all the great shops in this town.
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