Our wine inspiration can come from anywhere ... Like from Santa Fe, New Mexico

We just returned from a long 4 day weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For those who have never been, please try to schedule a trip soon. Its stunningly beautiful, perched hi up @ 7000 foot elevation. And yes, believe it or not, grapes grow in the New Mexico high dessert.

We enjoyed New Mexico's own GRUET sparkling wine grown from the outskirts of Albuquerque. Gruet NV Blanc de Noir at $13/bottle is a rare gem. Hints of peach, vanilla with the most sensual peach coral colors. Methode Champenoise is used. Gruet is a well known French Champagne house in Champagne France. One of the sons moved to Albuquerque in 1983 and started Gruet Winery based in New Mexico. My learning, if you're passionate & have the knowledge & werewithall, you can start a winery anywhere.

Aside from New Mexico grown grapes, we found Santa Fe to be extraordinarily adventurous & noteworthy in its wine lists at the many restaurants we happened upon. Like, Geronimo's. New Mexico's only Mobil 4 star restaurant. Quinn Stephenson, the wine buyer, is a California boutique wine fanatic. A rabid fan. He loves small, single vineyard productions like Garretson's lineup of Syrah's from Paso Robles and Merry Edwards's roster of Pinot Noirs. For us small wineries, a great person to know. What a pleasure it was to wine & dine with Quinn.

If you're needing wine for your picnics in Santa Fe, visit Susan's Fine Wine & Spirits store on El Cerrillos. Susan opened her own store just earlier this year with a mission to teach, and share the wines she loves from around the world. We bought a spectacular Jumilla from Roblemar, 2002 vintage for about $20/bottle. A meritage of Spanish Merlot & Tempranillo & Cabernet Sauvignon, that blends the best of all. Very well balanced with strong cherry fruit and a long mouth finish, it was great with our tamales & chicken mole tacos. What a great combo!

So our motto, venture off... travel to new places, try new wines, go out of your way to meet new people. You never know who will be your next mentor, friend, partner or customer.

Fish B of our team lives that motto well and we try to keep up. Thank you Leslie for the inspiration.

No doubt, our travels shape our tastes and decisions in the San Sakana wines we hope to share with all of you for many years to come. So who knows if we'll ever own our own vineyards, or source grapes from outside California but if exceptional wines can grow in the high dessert mesas of New Mexico, then maybe someday... We definitely made some good sales calls this weekend, so hopefully once we line up our NM wine distributors, we'll be sellling San Sakana wines to Geronimo's and to Susan's wine store.

I know I'll never forget what Santa Fe exposed me to this weekend. I hope you can all visit sometime soon and taste the magic yourselves.

Q's, comments - pls. email me at bettina@sansakana.com

Bettina

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