Night #1:

Wednesday, May 16th, 6:30pm, $55++

Dogfish Head IPA Dinner

This 3 course dinner will feature the many variations of American IPA that Dogfish Head creates. You will taste the 60, 75, 90 & 120 Minute IPA’s as well as the Aprihop, Burton Baton, and Hellhound on My Ale. These will be grouped in pairs in a 3 course presentation. We will begin and end with the 120 Minute IPA.

To see the menu and complete details, please visit The Blue Star’s Events Page.

Night # 2

Thursday, May 17th, 6:30pm, $55++

The “Leftovers” Dinner

This 3 course dinner is dubbed “the leftovers” because once we decided to commit to the IPA dinner, we had some fantastic beers “leftover” that we simply couldn’t ignore. Chef Andrew also plans to used some ingredients from Night #1 in his preparation for this dinner. The beer for this line up features some of Dogfish Head’s limited, seasonal, and occasional release brews. The line up includes Midas Touch, Ta Henket, Noble Rot, Faithful Ale, Palo Santo Marron, Bitches Brew & Chicory Stout.

To see the menu and complete details, please visit The Blue Star’s Events Page.

Pleas call The Blue Star at 719-632-1086 for reservations.

The last Pizzeria Rustica wine dinner of the season will be held on Tuesday, May 8^th. It will feature the wines of Damilano, including their delicious Barolo, and could be the best wine dinner value this year at only $49 plus tax and gratuity.

Therese Campbell from VIAS Imports will walk us through this lovely dinner, which promises to be very special indeed.

Reserve with Coaltrain soon as this dinner is sure to fill early: 475-9700.

John Vitale from Empson will be in the house to expand our wine knowledge. This four-course dinner (with five wines) will benefit the Wounded Warrior Project.

$49 plus tax and service. Call Coaltrain to reserve: 475-9700.

Corrido makes some of the best tequila we’ve tasted: smooth, complex and delicious. It even won over people who don’t often drink tequila.

Join us at what promises to be one of the most unique and delicious paired dinners of the year. You’ll drink the Cristalino, Reposado, Anejo and Single Barrel Extra Anejo, each paired with two small plates specifically created to go with it.

We can’t wait to see what the talented staff at the Conscious Table comes up with! Just $50 per person, plus tax and service.

We have Guiseppe Rinaldi (the demented “Citrico”), Elio Grasso, Paolo Scavino and more. We have decided to showcase these wines in a special tasting. It will be at the Table on Wednesday, June 13^th at 6:30pm.

Besides the Barolos, we’ll have copious volumes of white Arneis (from the same neighborhood) to cleanse the palate. And, of course, the Conscious Table’s brilliant kitchen will provide delectables to highlight the wines.

The cost of this once in a lifetime tasting is $95 per taster (plus tax and gratuity). Unfortunately the event must be limited to 20 tasters. Make your reservations with us at 475-9700.

He says often, “I just tell people what I think and do what I think is right. But that doesn’t mean I’m always right about life or winemaking.”

Though few know it, Aldo served in the US Army as a young man during the Korean War. After that he returned to the Langhe Hills of Piemonte and worked with the family winery, along with his brother Giovanni (who was another grand gentleman), In 1969, Aldo decided to go it alone and founded Poderi Aldo Conterno. The ascent to fame and fortune was begun.

Today Conterno’s wines are respected around the world. “Harmony” may be the best way to describe Aldo’s career. It was a harmony between tradition and modernity. And it was harmony in the wines he made. He would take the myriad sensations that the Nebbiolo grape can give and weave them into a harmonious whole.

Aldo says his winemaking epiphany came in 1968 when he visited Burgundy. There he experienced what soft, equilibrated wines could taste like. He observed the making techniques. He tasted the wines with food, once at a Michelin 3-star restaurant. He realized a wine didn’t have to be hard and tannic to make a breathtaking drink.

Aldo came back to Italy with new ideas and began implementing changes in the Conterno cellar. First, he gradually started to reduce fermentation time to five or six days. Though he believes wood to be the best to ferment the Nebbiolo grapes, he bought stainless steel fermentation tanks for the cellar. This allows for temperature control and “rimontaggi’ (pumping over). “This oxygenates the must and extracts color,” he explains. And, in these tanks, the bitter stalks collect in the bottom imparting less harsh tannins to the wine. In these ways, his wines became softer, more Burgundian.

“I think with the young Barolo most important is its cleanness. Years ago it stank because it wasn’t racked enough,” he shakes his head.

Aldo has three exceptional vineyards from which to compose his top Barolos. They are Colonnello, Cicala and Romirasco. They sit just over the hill from his house. They have varied soils and sun expositions and thus produce different wines. Normally, the Colonnello is the most gentle and approachable. The Cicala is normally the hardest. The Romirasco is handsome and manly. It is used largely in Conterno’s top Barolo blend, Grand Bussia. This wine is only released in great years and provides some of the greatest flavors in the world of wine.

Like every super winemaker, Aldo believes great wine comes from great vineyards. Thus he handles his with maximum respect. For fertilizer he says, “The best fertilizers come from the stable, but even that’s not so good anymore. But for us it’s better to use nothing because fertilizers increase production and decrease flavors.”

About the recent 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Barolo vintages he talks with honesty, not sales promotion. “I probably made the biggest mistake of my wine making career with the 2003. I decided not to bottle any Barolo, but instead put it all into another bottling called ‘Il Favot.’ I didn’t think it had the structure of true Barolo. When I saw what others bottled I knew I had made a big mistake.” Incidentally, that 2003 Il Favot was tapped as best wines of the vintage by a well-regarded Italian wine journal.

About the 2004, 2005 and 2006 Barolos that are in stores now, Conterno says with conviction, “They are all outstanding vintages.”

Recently, Aldo has moved from his imposing cantina, on the ridge of Bussia, and taken residence in the village of Monforte with his beloved wife, Gemma. “The winery is the boys’ thing now,” he sighs (He has three sons: Franco, Stefano and Giacomo). “I only come around if they have questions and at times when there is bottling or blending.”

So, it’s a quiet life for this gentleman now. He likes to play cards with old friends and take short car excursions with his wife about northern Italy. And he beams, “I like to have a glass of Barolo all by itself, as I watch TV at night. I like to taste the wine without any food.”

Conterno certainly has had a long and fruitful life. He has done about as much as a person can do to put Barolo in the category of World Class wines. But when you mention this to him he shakes his head.

And he says, “No matter what you do in life, you gotta have luck. No matter how good you are, if you don’t have luck you will never succeed. In my life, I had a lot of luck!”

That may be true. But, in Aldo Conterno’s life, he has had far more than luck alone.

We are also lucky to have at Coaltrain some of the greatest wines that Conterno ever made:

2000 Aldo Conterno Gran Busia Barolo, $249.99: In the vintage that Wine Spectator dubbed the greatest of the century for Barolo, this is, for us, the best wine from that vintage. It’s so rich, so complex, so perfect.

1999 Aldo Conterno Barolo, Cicala, $207.99: It’s a time of great joy when you can get a Barolo right at its peak. Cicala is one of Conterno’s rough and tumble vineyards that takes more than a decade to show its stuff. And that it is doing right now. An Italian volcano in a bottle.

The journal Nature made the connection between Madiran wines and longevity. Reportedly the Procyanidins aid the repair of arteries that feed the heart and have strong antioxidant properties. Madiran is made from the Tannat grape, which is also grown enthusiastically in Uruguay and to a lesser degree in Argentina.

Wherever it’s grown, Tannat produces a dark, hearty, concentrated wine with pleasing minerality. There is a lot going on with the wines and it shines with hearty fare. Coaltrain almost always carries some Madiran wines. And we have one of the very best now. Maybe it can become our new “Fountain of Life.” Golly, we need one.

2006 Laffitte-Teston Madiran, $25.99: Perhaps the top Madiran maker. The wine is dense and formidable. In ways, it reminds you of  a “left bank” Bordeaux, like a Ste. Estephe.

2009 Elk Cove Pinot Blanc, Willamette Valley, $17.99/Sale $14.99: A text book, Alsatian style Pinot Blanc. When you drink it, you are transported to a “weinstube” in Ribeauville.

2009 Elk Cove Riesling, Willamette Valley, $17.99/Sale $14.99: Now, it must be stressed that this Riesling is virtually bone dry. Again it’s in an Alsatian style, not German. Bring out a platter of “choucroute garnie.” Yes, you’re in that “weinstube” in Ribeauville again.

2009 Elk Cove Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, $25.99/Sale $21.99: It approaches top Oregon Pinot quality at a modest price. It’s supple and delightful. Wine Specator bequeathed it 91 points.

2009 Elk Cove Pinot Noir, Mount Richmond, Willamette Valley, $39.99/Sale $34.99: A paragon of Oregon’s Pinot production. It’s rich, profound in flavor and could take some aging. A laudable effort.

2009 Green Eyes Gruner Veltliner, $12.99/Sale $11.99: An excellent “intro” GV, crisp and dry with no frills.

2010 Forstreiter Gruner Veltliner, Fremser Kagl, $17.99: Dry and round with a bit more perfume that the above Green Eyes.

2009 Arndorfer Gruner Veltliner, Kamptal, $18.99: Kamptal is an Austrian region where many of the finest GVs come. It is sustainably farmed. 80% is fermented in stainless steel with the remaining 20% in neutral barrels. This gives the wine a sly complexity with a rounder dimension in the mid palate. Outstanding!

2009 Nikolaihof Heffabzug Gruner Veltliner, Wauchau, $28.99: The Wauchau produces some of Austria’s finest GVs. This gives you aroma, substance and some power. Not unlike a fine Alsatian Pinot Blanc.

2010 Berger Gruner Veltliner, $14.99/Sale $12.99 (liter): Stupendous value. We particularly like it because the bottle is sealed with a beer cap. Sometimes we pop one open and drink it like a Bud Light, right out of the bottle.

2010 La Petite Perriere Sauvignon Blanc, $12.99/Sale $11.99: You know, it’s really hard to beat a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire River Valley of France. That is, of course, where the “gold standard” of the grape is made—Sancerre and Pouilly Fume.

This is just a lowly table wine and yet it is fresh, clean, harmonious and without a flaw.

It comes from the Touraine district (the land of chateaux). It is made by the Guy Saget family who has been producing wines for eight generations. The wine would shine as an aperitif.

With goat cheese, it would be a marriage made in heaven. As close as you can come, anyway.

Red Wine

2010 Venta Morales Tempranillo, La Mancha, $10.99/Sale $9.99: Yes, from the countryside where Don Quixote had his many and varied misadventures.

But here is a wine that the “Don” would have loved to be sipping as he bumbled about.

It’s a lovely new estate put together by Rafael Canizares.

He purchased the best vineyard sites and planted them with the ideal Tempranillo clones.

The vineyard soils are sand, limestone and slate which yield a rich Tempranillo. Though inland, the climate is influenced by the Mediterranean Sea.

So you have a soft, but not flaccid, “verga vieja” red that can do battle with a lot of fine Riojas, at a third the price.

We predict this wine will go totally “viral.”

Rose Wine

2011 Bieler Rose, Coteaux d’Aix en Provence. $12.99/Sale $10.99: This dry rose is virtually always a customer craze. This because it gives such fetching strawberry and red fruit flavors.

In some vintages, there are even some watermelon rind essences. Two hours after picking, the grapes are in the press.

These grapes, by the way, are 50 percent Grenache with the other half a mix of Syrah, Cinsault and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cabernet is a bit unusual for way down here in southern France.

The wine is so invigorating, that our Courtesy Clerks have called a spring frolic to celebrate its arrival.