Another Round Of Angel's Envy

In 2021, there was one single barrel at Mission that stood out from all of the casks we purchased that year. While we had a number of fantastic selections, we received more positive feedback about our single barrel of Angel’s Envy than any other single cask exclusive we offered. Now that we’re a quarter of the way into 2022, I think there’s a good chance for history to repeat itself. Our second barrel is another stunner.

Getting to nose the actual empty European oak wine barrel that our latest Angel’s Envy single barrel release was finished in really offered an insight into its flavor profile. More than any expression I’ve ever tasted personally, this unique iteration is the least wine-y I’ve come across, which is exactly why we selected it for the store. The sweet, red-fruited character of Angel’s Envy is available any day of the week in the standard edition, so grab that bottle if it’s dessert Bourbon you’re after. The singular experience offered in Mission’s 4120 barrel is a richer, fuller, oakier expression of Angel’s Envy that goes heavy on the European oak spice, not so much the wine.

The color is a dark reddish amber and the weight of the whiskey is full-bodied, but rather than that kiss of sweetness we’ve come to expect from Angel’s Envy, the initial flavors are dark chocolate, incense, brandied cherries, and cigar box. Everything about the Bourbon’s profile prepares your palate for an onslaught of sweetness, but it’s completely held in check by the whiskey’s 110 proof power. Even at 55% ABV, it’s entirely sippable—a testament to the supreme drinkability that European oak wine barrels impart.

But the most exciting part of this single barrel expression is the insight it offers into the nature of the Angel’s Envy juice itself, without all the wine influence. I’ve never tasted a clearer and more delicious version of that whiskey until now.

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Repost: Talking Bordeaux With Jeff Garneau

As an educator and advocate for Bordeaux, there is no person on earth I would rather talk to about wine than my longtime friend Jeff Garneau. Hence, I decided to turn one of our conversations into a Live Instagram post so that other people out there could see the insight and humor that Jeff brings to his craft.

This was a fun way to spend an hour of my time today. Hopefully you guys feel the same.

-David Driscoll

Instagram Live Tomorrow With Jeff Garneau

If you’re on our email distribution list, then you probably got the notice earlier this morning about our new Bordeaux futures program, which I’m very excited about.

For those of you who are new to Bordeaux, I’m excited to take you on one of the most intoxicating and inspiring wine adventures our industry has to offer. Unlike the rest of the wine world, the chateaux of Bordeaux don’t sign exclusivity contracts with American importers or distributors to sell their wines. Instead, the wines are sold as futures years before their release, either directly from the chateau itself or through a negotiant partner. 

Working as a retailer in the Bordeaux trade means establishing relationships with both the producers and the brokers in the region, and taking positions on wines long before they’re even put into the bottle. We like to think of Bordeaux futures as a savings account, where you invest early to get a greater return down the line. By ordering futures in advance, you can secure far better pricing for wines that will continue to appreciate in value as the years go by.

To break down the basics of Bordeaux, I’m going live on Instagram at 1 PM PST tomorrow with not just one of my best friends, but also one of the best Bordeaux experts I’ve ever known: Mr. Jeff Garneau.

Jeff and I worked together for 11 years before he retired from retail and moved back to his home state of Maine. Tomorrow, he’ll be making his first professional Bordeaux appearance in many years!! He taught me just about everything I know about Bordeaux, so I’m now hoping to utilize his talents and charm to broaden that education at Mission. He is a wealth of information and anyone who’s even remotely interested in Bordeaux will find this quite informative.

I hope you’ll join us over at the @missionliquor account!

-David Driscoll

The Case For Bordeaux

As I was sitting in my living room last night, watching the Oscar night drama unfold onstage, I wasn’t thinking about how ridiculous Will Smith’s behavior was in that moment because I was too pre-occupied with the glass of Bordeaux in my hand.

My wife and I had friends over to watch the awards ceremony and I had popped a few bottles of wine to enjoy with the spread. We had a huge swath of snacks, charcuterie, cheeses, and other accoutrements, but I had whipped up a few New York steaks au poivre and my French friend Isabelle was going gaga for the pairing. “This wine is incredible!” she exclaimed, a complement coming from both a French native and a Gramercy Tavern alum; “What is it?”

I passed her the bottle. Nothing fancy. Just a 2012 Chapelle de Potensac, the second label from Haut-Médoc producer Château Potensac. I think I bought it for $15 some years back and it had been kicking around my cellar for a bit. As I’ve come to learn quite well over the years, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to drink great Bordeaux. You just have to be patient.

Even a sub-$20 bottle of claret can pay huge dividends if you give it time. The evolution of wine in the bottle is part of what makes the hobby so much fun. The liquid will continue to evolve little by little, every day tasting just a bit different than it would have tasted previously. It’s why buying just a single bottle of wine to age is such a risky endeavor. If you don’t have multiples to open over time and gauge where the wine is at, how will you know the right moment to open it?

That variability is part of the fun for serious wine lovers, and simultaneously part of the fear for whiskey drinkers. As I’ve come to learn over time, Scotch and Bourbon lovers don’t deal well with uncertainty. When they read a review online about a delicious new whiskey, they want the exact same tasting experience to be replicated in their glass. Whiskey is shelf stable, whereas wine is not; hence, there are no guarantees. Personally, I think it’s the main reason that more whiskey collectors don’t evolve into wine collectors. In a world that’s become increasingly black and white in terms of preference, there’s little tolerance for gray areas.

What’s interesting from my perspective, however, is how the value proposition between wine and whiskey has started to swing back the other way. About ten years ago, as Bordeaux prices started going though the roof and top Napa Cabernets became cult favorites, Bourbon and Scotch were still relatively undervalued given their quality and demand. The idea that one could spend $100 on a bottle of Pauillac and be forced to drink it by the end of the night stood in stark contrast to a $100 bottle of whiskey that could be consumed little by little over the course of many years.

Today, however, with the top Bourbons and single malts either unavailable or unaffordable for many drinkers, there are few surprises left to be discovered and consumers have started scaling back. The single barrel business has completely dried up, age statements have disappeared, and small upstarts often charge double or even triple what’s expected due to a lack of scale. Meanwhile, Bordeaux is moving in the other direction. Inventory is starting to pile up, back vintages are starting to open up again, and I’m finding value after value in the negotiant warehouses across the Atlantic. I think drinkers are ready to pivot over to a new adventure, and Bordeaux’s star is rising again at just the right moment.

Whereas I’m continuously recommending the same whiskey values today that I recommended five years ago, Bordeaux has become much more fluid. There’s only so many times I can recommend Buffalo Trace and Balvenie 12 before I run out of options that deliver for the dollar, but I’ve been able to find new Bordeaux values just about every week over the last few months. In just a few years, something like the 2016 Peyrabon for $19.99 will drink just as beautifully as the wine I drank last night for dinner. Give it ten years past the vintage and you’ll have a serious wine on your hands, or spend an extra five bucks and get the 2006 Peyrabon for $24.99 that already has more than a decade of maturity. By the time you come back for more, I’ll have an entirely new container of Bordeaux to show you, with new wines, new stories, and new discoveries.

There was a time when I would peruse lists of available barrels in both Scotland and Kentucky, getting excited about potential purchases like a kid mapping out his Christmas list. But with available inventory at an all-time low and prices at an all-time high, I’m having way more fun looking at the available Bordeaux inventory in warehouses along the Gironde. 2005 Barde-Haut, 2010 Kirwan, 2012 Leoville Barton, 2014 La Dame de Montrose: so many well-priced wines from great producers in solid vintages with bottle age! I’ve been placing orders right and left this past week, locking down cases of $20 bargain bottles to $500 unicorns.

We’re going to dig deeper into Bordeaux this week. There’s a lot to talk about.

-David Driscoll

Our Second Rare Character Barrel

Just in!!

Our second barrel from Rare Character showcases the Mission flagship store in Pasadena on the label, with the iconic vertical tobacco sign front and center and the towering San Gabriel mountains against a rather Van Gogh-esque California sky. This five year old single cask Bourbon, distilled at MGP in Indiana, was bottled at 59.56% ABV and features one of the richest, woodiest noses you'll find on this side of the Mississippi. Every aroma that emanates from the glass is soaked in oak, moving lithely between polish and pencil shavings. The richness from all that oak tempers the heat on the palate, somehow giving one the impression the whiskey isn't a beastly 119.12 proof, but rather somewhat sippable neat, straight out of the bottle. This isn't a sweet whiskey, however. While the oak is bold, the vanilla notes are dry and lean, allowing for secondary fruit and floral notes with a spiciness that finishes like leather. If it's complexity you're after, this is a very fun whiskey to dissect. It's not just a delicious ride, it moves across the entire flavor spectrum and back, the product of one unique single barrel, itself a diamond in the rough.

-David Driscoll

Italy in LA: Eataly

When I tell my friends I think Eataly is one of the best places to eat in LA, they sort of frown and ask: “Really?”

Yes, Eataly is a giant Italian supermarket in the Century City mall with other national locations in places like Las Vegas and New York, but don’t let its size or scale fool you into thinking it isn’t a serious food destination. Besides the incredible selection of Italian products on hand, there are a few places to eat within the store, some very casual and some very fine. But right in the middle of that spectrum sits La Pizza & La Pasta, which is my favorite place to go. There’s a beautiful little bar right in the middle of it, a build-your-own-Negroni menu, and you can add truffles to anything for an extra $15. What else do you really need?

Because a good Negroni Bianco is hard to find these days, I always start with that. Something about that mild, delicate bitterness is more attractive to my palate in these instances than the bigger, bolder classic Negroni. You’ve seen a million cocktail photos in your life, so I did an extreme close-up on the ice with the citrus peel for the sake of being artsy.

You can sit at the bar and eat if you like, plus there are a few counters along the pizza ovens if you’re a voyeur for that kind of action. There’s an outside balcony if you feel like sitting outside on a fine Los Angeles afternoon, or you can grab a table in a few different inside areas. Everything is very casual, but the menu is big and the food is fantastic, plus there’s a pretty good wine list.

We always do a few starters to get things moving. The polpette (meatballs) are juicy and moist in the middle. Splitting a calzone is also recommended, as they cut it into six snackable pieces. But, for me personally, the star of the menu is the cacio e pepe spaghetti with the truffle add-on. I’ve had it at least five times now and it’s never been anything less than perfect. The server will bring out a small scale like you’re back in high school buying weed from your neighbor. The truffle will be weighed in front of you, and then sliced by hand onto your dish of choice.

I ordered a bottle of Grüner Veltliner from the Alto Adige and say back to watch the show. Then grabbed a tiramisu from the store and came back home for some grappa. It never disappoints.

-David Driscoll

Not What; How & Why

Since I went out to lunch with wine writer Robert Camuto last week to talk Italian wine, I felt obligated to read his book South Of Somewhere. I’m very happy I did, as it’s a highly-enjoyable romp through some of the less-recognized wine regions of Southern Italy. One particular segment that caught my attention takes place in the little-known Calabrian appellation of Ciró, a region that makes a rustic red from the Gaglioppo grape.

While somewhat lamenting the lack of recognition the area receives from wine drinkers, one of the winemakers explains the purpose of Ciró: you take a bite of food—maybe sardines, or something with olive oil, capers, and Calabrian chili—then you take a sip of wine. The point of Ciró is to cleanse the palate in between bites, readying the taste buds for the next onslaught of intense Calabrian flavor. The Ciró wine is made for exactly that purpose. Hence, if you take the wine out of context—like pouring a glass of Ciró after work to unwind—you’ll likely misunderstand its function.

I thought about this story yesterday while driving home from work, talking to my longtime friend Lester Lopez on the car speaker phone. Since we both work in the industry, we often discuss consumer trends and where we think the market is headed. With the push toward premiumization likely to continue forward, we were discussing how much we still liked inexpensive American beers like Coors Banquet and Coors Light. At one point, Lester said: “Each sip of Coors Light I take prepares my mouth for the whiskey. I rinse my palate with the cold, refreshing beer, then I’m ready for the next sip of Scotch.”

So often when wine and spirits reviews are written by both professionals and amateurs these days, the liquids are tasted and evaluated in a vacuum. The point is to isolate the product from any outside influence and breakdown its merit. But to do that is to often completely miss the point. Coors Light may not hold up to Pliny The Elder in a side-by-side taste test, but I sure as hell don’t want to drink whiskey with a super-hoppy, 8% IPA as my back. Sometimes it’s not about what you’re drinking, but how you’re drinking and why. There’s a reason the term “session beer” exists in the UK.

As I’m preparing for the Scotland trip I have coming up at the beginning of May, I’m thinking long and hard about the future of our industry and where Mission stands in the grand scheme of things. Do we really want to be the 100th retailer in American to bring in a barrel of cask strength Tormore or 20 year old Strathisla? Does anyone really want these single barrel whiskies anymore given the price and lack of provenance? And do we want to keep pushing the market in that direction? We’ve put so much focus on what we’re drinking over the last ten years that I think we’ve forgotten why we drink and for what purpose.

People weren’t meant to come home at night and line up five or ten bottles on the table, with little thimble-sized tastings of each to contemplate flavor. They’re meant to gather with friends and talk about their day over a beverage. They eat a meal together. They sit on the patio in the evening to find a social communion. To sit alone in your bunker with hundreds of unopened bottles is a lonely existence. That’s not what alcohol was meant for, and it’s been taken out of context for far too long now.

-David Driscoll

Italy In LA: Pizzana

There are a number of great wine stores in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, but after three years of living here, I’m fully convinced that an Italian-focused wine retailer is going to win the day with LA wine drinkers.

Why do I think that?

Because Italian wine ticks all the right boxes for what’s hot in SoCal right now:

  • it’s often organic/natural because that’s how they’ve always done it

  • the prices are affordable

  • there’s a ton of off-the-radar stuff to dig into

  • and it’s incredibly-food friendly with any kind of diet.

But the real reason I’m going full-throttle on building Mission’s Italian wine department has to do with the fully-thriving Italian restaurant scene here in LA. You never hear anyone say it, but for my money Los Angeles has more great Italian restaurants than any city not named New York. I eat out for amazing Italian food here at least once a week, so I’m going to start sharing some of those destinations here for those of you wondering why you would ever start drinking Italian wine at this point in your life.

We’re starting today with Pizzana, which has both a West Hollywood and Brentwood location. I’ve been to both at least five times a piece and they’re equally fantastic. You’re definitely not going to find any whiskey on the menu, so you’d better be ready to drink Italian wine! Plus, what kind of lunatic wants Bourbon with pizza?!

If you’re going for a simple lunch, my recommendation is easy: get the little gem caesar with the truffle pizza. I would never tell anyone to get a salad unless it was something special, and this one is. The dressing has Calabrian chiles mixed into it, and there are super briny capers along with spongy, doughy, somewhat crispy croutons. You’re going to want white or rosé for this menu, so grab the daily rosato, or do a bottle of verdicchio, falangina, or even Prosecco.

If you’re bringing a bottle from Mission, I’d probably go with the 2020 Graci Etna Rosato $16.99 because there’s enough acidity to pair with the salad, but enough fruit to combat the kick. Plus, who doesn’t want to drink a wine made from grapes grown on the side of a giant volcano?

The star of Pizzana’s incredible arsenal in my opinion is the truffle pizza, simply called “Truffe.” For under $50, I don’t think there’s a more authentic and seriously-concentrated truffle dish this good anywhere. I’ve eaten truffles all over the world and I can think of few similar meals in California that have given me as much pleasure as this one.

Pizzana is hardly a secret. I’ve yet to visit the Brentwood location and not sit next to someone incredibly famous. That being said, if you don’t venture outside your neighborhood all that often, it’s worth planning a day around eating there. Plus, you’re going to realize quickly just how delicious and important a bottle of Italian wine is to a meal like this one.

-David Driscoll