Wine Tasting at our Cape Cod Inn: Charlie's Weekly Wine-ing

Charlie's Weekly Wine-ings

Last weeks guests at our Cape Cod Bed and Breakfast Inn loved the Pine Ridge 2008 Chenin Blanc-Viognier and the Feudo Arancio Stemmari Sicilia 2008 Pinot Noir that we served.We also tried a nice locally produced Chardonnay from Travessia Urban Winery in New Bedford, MA. Our guests, Marie and Richard, brought us some of these wines to taste. Richard makes his own wines and was very impressed with the wine maker who sourced the Chardonnay grapes from California and produced a lovely unoaked Chardonnay. I think a trip to New Bedford is in my near future to taste more to these wines.

Yesterday, we had an impromptu wine tasting with our friends from Cellar 55 Wine Merchants on our back patio.  These small gatherings of wine lovers are affectionately referred to as Charlie’s ‘Wine Patio’. The fruits of are labor, is my guest wine offerings for this week. For the white wine, I am serving a Buitenverwachting 2009 Beyond Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa.  Buitenverwachting is German for ‘beyond expectation’ and I think this wine is representative of the fine wines coming from South Africa today.  My red is the 2008 Camille Cayran Secret de Campane from France’s Southern Rhone region.  It is a fun blend of Grenache, Carignan, Cinsault and Merlot.

The Memorial Day weekend in Sandwich is a favorite of mine because the Memorial Day parade passes in front of the Inn. A twenty-one-gun salute is fired at the Civil War and Korean War memorials in Town Hall Square, right at the end of my driveway. I get to put out all my American flags and our guests enjoy the patriotic scene almost as much as I do.  The weather is predicted to be clear and warm, a perfect match for the light and easy-drinking wines I look forward to sharing with my guest. 

Happy Wine-ing,


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