NOLADrinks – 1-12-17 – Beverage Trends

On this edition of the NOLADrinks Show, we cover a lot of ground! We welcome Joey Worley, Food and Beverage Director of the famed Windsor Court Hotel, Jose De La Rosa of boutique wine shop, Bin 428, and Gino Colangelo of Colangelo & Partners, a spirits and wine PR firm in New York, discussing beverage trends.

NOLADrinks – 1-12-17 – Beverage Trends

As we kick-off the show, as usual, we talk about some events happening around New Orleans. We then jump in with Joey Worley, Food and Beverage Director of the Windsor Court Hotel. The hotel recently added a premium coffee shop that features French Truck Coffee. Though New Orleans is, and has been for a very long time, a major coffee port, much of it merely passes through to other areas of the US. In reality, very few roasters actually exist in the city. This is changing and French Truck Coffee is at the fore of this. We then talk about the beverage program at the two hotel bars, both of which feature craft cocktails and an excellent wine selection. Joey and the hotel always seek to provide education as part of the beverage experience there.

We then talk with Jose De La Rosa, manager of Bin 428, an Uptown New Orleans wine shop that boasts a smart selection of wine, beer, and spirits. They hosted (the evening of the radio broadcast) a wine tasting featuring Sonoma’s Bedrock Wine Co. They’re an up-and-coming wine producer in California that, at times, takes interesting approaches to their winemaking. This includes taking advantage of field blends, for example. They also seek to produce top-quality rosé that is not made with the commonly found “saignée” method (where, for the most part, some free-run juice coming from grapes meant to be made into red wine is bled off to make rosé, as opposed to cultivating the grapes in the vineyard and producing wine in the cellar directly intended to make the wine.)

We then welcome Gino Colangelo, founder and president of Colangelo & Partners, a noted PR firm in New York City that specializes in premium wine and spirits marketing and promotion. We discuss beverage trends Gino sees in the industry in both the world of wine and spirits. We touch on wines, such as those from Spain and Greece, that deliver excellent quality at a great price. We also talk about the growing popularity of Japanese spirits, namely Shōchū and Whiskey, as well as the agave-based distillate produced in Mexico, Mezcal.

We close the show discussing the recent heavy precipitation in California and what some of the implications may be for the drought-stricken state and its massive wine industry. We also mention a new festival coming to New Orleans, “Marley Gras Jerk Chicken Festival,” coming to the Central City area on Saturday, February 11. The event will celebrate the culture and cuisine of Jamaica with a NOLA spin. It also honors Bob Marley, whose birthday is February 6.

Below the map of some of the spots featured in this show, you can subscribe to, stream, and download the podcast.

Cheers, You All!