Hop Alley

Welcome to Three Blind Wines. We're really lucky today to be invited into Hop Alley. I am Jacob Roadhouse.

My job is wine and I'm at Hop Alley right now. Hi, I'm Jeff Cox, the executive chef at Hop Alley. I am Sam Mah, owner of Somebody People.

Hi, I'm Justin. I'm the chef of Somebody People. Obviously, Hop Alley, great restaurant here in Denver.

Thank you Jeff and Jacob for having us. Really appreciate it. My number one, you've got this beautiful bouquet of tin pineapple peaches.

Not too over the top on the tropical flavors, but definitely a little bit peach yogurty kind of characteristics as well. Oh, yummy. It's a dry wine.

Got great acidity. Kind of almost biscety characteristic coming out. Like a briosy character when you have like a little bri bread with some kind of fruit on the top, a little bit of yogurt on top of that for breakfast, little maple syrup or something like that.

It's kind of got that angle where you're dining at your favorite cafe. Wow. Super interesting.

Super super interesting. But really, really good. Definitely from a warm climate cuz you're getting these kind of more kind of forward with the fruit characteristics.

You got a little bit of vanilla, a little bit of oak. I'm going to say that this is a from the Ron Valley. It's a blend Maran Rousan.

A little bit of phenolic ripeness. It's got great acidity and it has those kind of tropical notes. Wine number one looks pretty good today.

It's good. Colors pretty gold bronze. It's like green fruit pretty much.

Maybe a little stainless steel, but let's taste it. It's slightly funky uh on the pallet. Nice acidity.

It doesn't like rip too much. It's really wellrounded. Uh there might be like a little bit of skin contact just because it's like slightly heavy on your palette, but I couldn't honestly tell you what wine this is.

So, I'm going to have to uh take a huge guess. But it's really tasty, really funky. Uh there's a lot going on that's I would call this really complex.

Let's try it one more time and we'll take a guess. My guess for this wine is New Worlds. Let's say Austria burner gverme.

The wine people aren't here so I'm just kind of guessing. I actually I'm going to go Reeseling cuz I know that that word. Maran Blend Rone Valley $38.

New World Reeseling price expens dude. $56 a bottle. Kind of salty pathy. You get the kind of stone fruit.

You get that peppery note to it. This is one of those wines that is better with food, no doubt, but still very, very tasty on its own. Wine number two.

Definitely a white wine. Yellow in color. It's got a hint of texture cuz you can tell by the tears.

I'm looking forward to it anyway. On the nose, soft pear, salinity, little kind of yellow appleish kind of thing. Weirdly enough, it reminds me of blueberries.

It's kind of throwing me off. So, every time I smell a little kind of berry in a grape, I think it might be a different grape variety. Maybe a red gray variety posing as a white gray variety.

Do you know what I mean? Or a dog dressed as a cat kind of mentality of a wine. Clay or some sort of minerality.

No influence of oak that I can tell. Maybe old oak, but there's no new oak. A citrus characteristic and good acidity.

Kind of lending itself like I'm kind of moving towards Chardonnay or something like that. I even thought Reisling maybe. So, like more of a textured reasoning, but yeah, this one is like it's it's very sophisticated.

It's almost like when I put on a suit and I'm going out to a fancy theater date. This is how I feel. It is in the glass here.

They're throwing me off. Could be Chardonnay, could be Reisling. Wine number two.

It's definitely lighter, not like the bronze or gold color that we had for the first one. Smell weed. It definitely just smells like weed.

You get like a little bit of rhubarb in there, too. early berries like young halib berry. There's a good amount of city in this guy. The funk from the smell on the nose doesn't really come through on the palette, but the city just kind of like sits there.

It's still like still sitting. There's a nice like salinity on the back ends. Kind of richness that really kind of hits your palette.

I would guess this wine is a petnat. Is petnat a wine? I don't think it's like a grape.

I think it's just a style of making wine, but I could be completely wrong. It refers to a sparkling wine. The wine gods told me it refers to a sparkling wine.

Breezling from Germany, uh, the Nay region. Probably retails for around about $35. This is a petnat.

I guess grape ble penogree. I guess gregio gree. I like to slang things.

Let's go. Knicks. I said the bottle was going to be 42, I believe.

Tons of florality, lots of blossomy notes to it. Um, but it has that very very kind of like classic Shenmblanc acidity that kind of just builds. It's not stationary.

It kind of moves through your whole palette. I would say in relation to the two, this is delicious on its own. It's gets really, really great with food.

I would smash this by itself. Wine number three. White wine heaven today.

It's just like it's all white wines. Oh, a little reductive monster on the nose. You can uh you can feel that this wine maybe built for age.

It's definitely got a beautiful golden yellow color in the glass. On the nose, you you're definitely getting those kind of like struck matched little cedar, a little bit of kind of oak influence, kind of vanilla, a kind of riper apple characteristics that I get. I say characteristics a lot, don't I?

Little bit of kind of cotle cream on top. O always when I smell reduction in a wine, I kind of think, okay, this wine is kind of built to to age for a little bit. So, but this is definitely a youngish version of a wine.

I'd say 22, maybe 22, 23. On the palette, you're getting a little bit more kind of riper fruit characteristics. So, I'm saying like like ripe apple, peach, a little bit of kind of pear characteristics, some citrus, all that kind of fun stuff.

You're getting this great kind of oak integration within the wine. So, it's not overbearing. It's in the background.

It's kind of like holding that that fruit in a little basket, little wooden basket. And it's so you're really getting that smell of kind of kind of country kind of country France kind of style. I think the cool thing here is that it's not so much about the fruit that's coming out.

It's more about the background characteristics. So whether you're getting a little bit of earth and a little bit of minerality in the wine, it's really really good wine. Really happy with the selection that Jacob's given us.

Sometimes when you do these tastings, you get like maybe one, maybe two really great wines, but all these wines are really, really good. Like I'm just so stoked with what has been poured in these glasses. Could be ShenBlanc, could be Chardonnay, could be Reisling, could be something that I'm going to get totally wrong as I always do, but I do think it's Chardonnay this one.

I think this is Chardonnay from I'm going to say it's from Burgundy. So, Chardonnay from Burgundy from probably a pretty great estate. So, I think this is a this is a really really great wine.

I'd say it's kind of in that Premier Crew kind of range. Might be giving it a really really great rap, but I I do I really enjoy it. I love that rich active character cuz I know that it's kind of built to last.

The Subo style leans very into that kind of like curried spice. It just intensifies in every way. Um, this I would still say is a rather intense style wine.

It's gottense acidity. It's got tons of minerality. Wine number three.

I don't know what color. Uh, there's probably like a little bit of green in here. It's definitely not the bronze from the beginning.

The little more hazy in the second one. Um, this one looks a little more classic. I would guess Chardonnay, but we haven't done anything yet.

Damn it. Uh, this one is also funky as [ __ ] Wet grass, like wet wood, like kind of smell off of the nose. Let's just taste it, I guess.

On the palette, I immediately get like funk and nuttiness. uh that sits there for like a quick second and then the acidity kind of just kills it all out. It's not really heavy like the second one was. The first two definitely maybe some sort of skin contact because of the where it sits on your palette.

You would want to eat it with something fatty because of the acidity. I don't know what the hell any of these are. My guess is definitely New World.

I would put it in maybe not New World. Uh let's go. I'm going to say some sort of Chardonnay.

I don't know where it's from. It's super tasty. This is so sexy.

Sexy in the glass. It's a cracking wine. Chardonnay from Burgundy. 2022. 70.

Oh, what' I say? 50 $52 a $52 a bottle. Southern France Chardonnet. It's definitely 45. lots of texture, lots of body, but because of that acidity and that kind of just kinetic energy of the wine, it never comes across as like a big wine or a full wine.

It is kind of one of those wines that is heavy, but it kind of hovers on your palette, and that's what good white wines do. I could drink that by itself, too. What do you think of wine number one?

I thought all these wines were pretty amazing. Um, there's normally something where I was like, I tasted wine number one, I got a little bit stumped. One number two, I got really stumped.

I don't know what that is. One number three, I was kind of think I I nailed it, but I'm not really sure. As far as a wine that's got a definitely a a broad spectrum of different flavors.

I thought that really nailed it. It was just trying to decide what it was and where it was from. I guess that's the [ __ ] game really.

I thought about oxidative handling and I was like, [ __ ] what is it? I was like, it's not like so prominent on the oak, but it's definitely there and it's like it's kind of cool. The color gives it away as well.

Might have age on it. I was a little bit stumped, but I think um what I think I I guess Maran from the Rome New World Austria Gvert, I think is what I said. I I smelt it and I was like just thinking old concrete tanks just fermenting away like old school ways of making it like a bunch of monks just hanging out smoking cigarettes making wine.

I think if you guys smooshed both of your kind of thought process together you would end up being right. I would say like the thing that maybe you're picking up as skin contact is kind of just an inherent quality of the grape with a little bit of phenolic bitterness. Okay, just a couple that kind of fall into that category.

Classic grape, classicish region. We're in Austria and the Vine Verto. Um this is 2015 Santag Gishlashen uh 30 3140 Tajin Foss.

This is Gruner Ventliner in 1,850 L cast for 9 years. Oh wow. So it just got released.

Um this is just a really cool producer that kind of I like just stumbled upon like I think right before the pandemic happened. It does not release a lot of wines. The the first wine that he released that I was able to snack on was uh the 2011 and then this was the last one that he released.

Cool. But yeah. So I won that I won that one.

You did you have it? I would say I mean if we're picky winners at least this early in the game that's amazing cool a little von joint they're delicious but I I mean I would say both of you kind of I I think there's aspects of this wine that will inherently throw you off. There's an oxidative nature to it but not a lot of like oak influence to it.

When you kind of piece those out, you're like, "Oh, you're thinking wood." But I don't think anyone's going to the conclusion of, "Oh, this was aged for 9 years in big oak barrel." Fun, exciting, veteran will be right around 36 bucks. There's a ritzy nature about it. Now I smell it natural in its in its aromomas.

And so then I smelt it just before my mind went to Spain. So I really don't know what it was. I I kind of I'm double guessing.

So I was just like I said raising originally. I said petnet but then found out that petnet is not actually a a thing that you can say. So you can you just need the the petalot nature of the petal.

It definitely didn't have any didn't have any bubbles. Um I think I also guessed uh rezling as well. I also said weed.

I get a lot of weed in this. I see weed. Almost a petroly type nature to this.

To me, it's very like bloss blossomy. Yeah. Like uh I mean I had like a a apricot tree in my backyard last year and it smelled very similar to that.

All of those make sense, right? It's got a lot of acidity. The acidity builds like it's it's not a kind of like a stationary type acidity.

And when I think of that acidity that kind of builds into a crescendo is I think in Shannon Blanc. Shannon Blanc. This is Jerome Lambbear cooled the source.

So he is um you you got the natural part. He's farmed by Namic. He's never made wine with sulfur.

Um his whites tend to be the more definitely more stable of them. They kind of have that show that like like razor's edge, but it doesn't go into like a what I would consider like a bad funk. It just has like a almost like an umami funk to it.

Yeah. And then that kind of like salty kind of piffiness to it. Stylistically it's pretty it's different cuz like Ra Leon which is kind of like where the natural wine stuff happened.

It's like Rashard Lua, Mark Anelie, Stefan Bernardo. He came from the Rishard Mwa camp which are tends to be like these rich powerful kind of like intense styles of wine almost white burgundyesque filtered through this lens of sh. But these are kind of more on that like laser beam side where it's kind of you get a little salty tropical, you get a little greed note to it, but then you have all that kind of like really pretty broth note to it.

I've really been into salty wines lately. You're a salty guy. You're a salty guy.

Yeah, I'm a salty guy. Salty go. Let's go next.

Oh yeah. Comic Sons on the label. You know it's going to be a good natural wine that so good.

This would be around like 46ish bucks. Oo. What' you think of wine number three?

It's tense. It's moody. It's kind of like me on a Monday morning.

You know what I mean? Um it's got little hints of vanilla. Guess you know.

I also guess Chardonnay. It must be uh something in the water today because Sam and I guess a bunch of the same things. Oh yeah.

The nuttiness and then the city that kind of just like sits there like the nuttiness that hits your palette immediately and then like dissipates in the like the city just kind of like lingers was really nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Like thinly sliced French apple tart. Uh tong very skin skin forward. Yeah, that's what I thought.

That's kind of well I think like if you were to think of like a through line for all these wines like all of these kind of like lean more into the pathy skin side of the fruit then like the really plush kind of sweet pulpy fruit to if yeah and some salt. That's this the salty salty whites are just they're just in right now. As you drink better wines and wine like it it's gets less and less about the fruit, right?

Like the fruit is always going to be there, but what makes those wines great is kind of the nonf fruit kind of element to kind of give it some complexity to it. But you guys nailed this one. Chardonnay.

Where? From where? From the jura.

You're on the money. I guess did you guess? Did you guess?

I said Chardonnay. Southern B. I uh yeah I said burgundy premier crew.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, like the jur on the higher end, like they become less and less Yeah. like easy to kind of pick up cuz they have that intensity, they have the power, you know, they have I should cuz there's more acidity to this wine.

Like it's like well kind of think of like Jura like Burgundy with mountains and more extreme, right? So like all like there this is a wea style. also like a topped up. Um, so this is 2 years in uh Old Barrel.

He and Michelle Gahier is another I would say explicitly Sans natural wine maker, but he's I would say you you would consider him a natural wine. Yeah, it's far out. So, what do we have here?

We got Oh, we got the Lou Blanc. So, the four I I want to say this is about 40-year-old vines. very very kind of precise clean farming and very very little to no intervention in the v uh that's cracking u seller. These are all really good.

Thank you so good. Yeah. Yeah.

So, what's the price on this? This one would be around 46 bucks retail. Retail.

That's pretty good. I know. That's a good little price.

I think that's a great price. I think definitely buy a case. I think that's a price where like the general consumer could really like get their heads busted.

Yeah. Buy a $46 jur. I mean, Jurro was fancy and so popular 10 years ago.

Yeah. Do you know it's got to come back. Yeah.

You know, maybe it's a next one. All these things are cyclical. So good.

Such a good wine. Thank you so much. Yeah.

I appreciate it. Those ones are so good. This looks beautiful.

So pretty. So these are dragon whiskers, but really they're just the small sprouting greens of the snow pee [Music] plant. Favorite part about them is the fact that the stems are hollow.

So they end up being like little straws that drink up the sauce and the walk and uh really carries the flavor to your to your palette. A little bit of garlic, a little bit of Thai soy sauce, and finish with just a little bit of white vinegar to brighten everything up. [Music] It's one of those great examples of very few ingredients coming together to really be greater than the sum of its parts. Start us off. [Music] That's really good.

That's soy. Thank you so much. I mean, I don't know which one to start with first.

Oh, good or more fruity. Yeah, I know. That's awesome.

It totally changes it. Yeah. Are we still Are we recording?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, [ __ ] No.

This is so good. Um, so good. Oh.

It's not that often where I'm correct. So, you know, I'm kind of living in this form. I might have go I might have gone three for three here.

It's almost like the second one runs side by side with the the dish whilst the uh the first one kind of changes everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Agreed. Honestly, I'm going to say that I think the third one was my favorite with it. I think the second one pairs with it really nicely and there's like a nice like cohesion with like the dish and the wine.

But there's something about the third wine that once you eat and you drink, you're getting complexity from both of them, which is like five. Yeah. And they like and they mel together really well, which is super nice.

You know, I can't say I disagree with you. But all of them work. Like honestly, all the wines work really well with the dish.

I I wouldn't be I wouldn't be upset if I got any. I would honestly say that you're the winner because you [ __ ] nailed it. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, they all have they all are complimented in three different ways. So definitely this changes both kind of dishes which is kind of really exciting.

This just like runs parallel with it. The third wine just enhances both together that type of meat reductive kind of note like tones back once it has the food. Yeah. like slight cook on the soy with the reductive note kind of like takes that away, but everything else from the from the wine comes out which is nice.

I haven't tried this in like 2 years and this dish is pretty really good. It also brings out a lot more lemon. Freshens up the palette.

Such a good pairing experience here at Hop Alley. Loved it. Amazing.

Yeah. So good. We have fun.

Far out. The Daniel son is overtaking the master and um me Miss Miyagi is going to have to retire now. So that's great.

You know you can retire now. I can retire now. I know.

I know. Yeah. But where's he?

I do. I'd like to thank everyone. Actually like to thank Sam for all the teaching and my wife for putting up with me.

And uh let's go mix. [Music] Uh, I can't do ah all the time. Ah, anyway, it's my natural sound. It's my resting voice.

So, this is one, one, one. No, one, two, three. Okay, cool.

Thank you. You're welcome. Swear Shannon's like my Achilles heel, you know?

It was for a long time for me, but then I just started drinking so much. So, okay, cool. All right.

Cuz it gives you so many different things cuz like you can have the wines for like a lot of richness and body. You can have like laser beams like this. You got sweet styles.

Um, this is like a good one that you'd want to eat with like grilled meats. Like if you gave me like a plate of grilled meats, I'd be like, "Yeah, this is [ __ ]