W.I.N.O. is the name of a wine bar/wine shop on my favorite street in New Orleans, Tchoupitoulas street.  It is very different from any wine bar that I know. There are the requisite long tables and stools but little food and almost no servers. Instead, you go to the cash register and buy a type of smart card. You can put as much money as you want on the card and then proceed to taste any of the 50 or so wines that they have “on tap.” The pour sizes are 4 oz, 6 oz or 8 oz and vary in price.

I tried a variety of domestic wines including two that I particularly liked:

The first one was a Hendry Block 7 2005 Zinfandel from the Napa valley. The somewhat odd name refers to the fact that the Hendry vineyard is split into 50 different blocks, each managed separately. The Hendrys have owned their vineyards since 1939 and see each vineyard block as a learning experience. It seems to me that they have gotten something right with their zin. It was big and juicy with loads of plum and blueberry. The wine spends 15 months in French oak barrels and the wood tones are very well integrated. Drinking this wine with a big juicy steak would have been ideal. I, however, had work to do that day, and together with my friend and colleague Sunny Gandara, proceeded to taste through many of the wines on offer.

My other favorite was a Tofanelli 2003 Charbono from Napa, my first one. A fellow blogger and Italophile, Jeremy Parzen, had written a long piece on Charbono wines on his blog, http://www.dobianchi.com. Armed with this recommendation, I took the plunge.

I found this new grape enticing and was excited by its fruity notes of plum, black cherry, and blueberry together with nuanced wood, tobacco and cedar. The wine was complex and well integrated with a long persistent finish. The Tofanelli family has been farming their property since 1929. They use no irrigation, practice organic farming (no pesticides), and do not use trellising systems.

For more information on either of these producers or W.I.N.O., check out their websites at http://www.winoschool.com, http://www.hendrywines.com, and http://www.tofanelliwine.com.