Happy Monday...

Last week I wrote of the preponderance of sightings of the species, Gluteus Youthicocis, and verily, my observations were borne out by anecdotes of other parental (and like) units relaying their tales of kids growing beyond the realm of family and into the great expanse of possibility.

Music Camp transpired last week for Nella. At the end, my daughter greeted us (well...let me back up...she in fact ran off with her friends after the first two of three concerts we attended and did not greet us at all...we had a small talk about etiquette after that) by asking, "Is it all right that I didn't miss you?" She then proceeded to talk non-stop until she crashed, hard, for a wee bit over 12 straight hours.

Now we come to the gauntlet of summer, for our family. More sports! More camps! Internship! And sure, Chris and I still work our, you know...jobs. The big hurdle, of course, soon appears around the bend in the track...the family. Christine has approximately 8032 family members and every year most, if not all, do what everyone else does who isn't already smart enough to live here...they come visit. All are individually pretty spectacular, but I'm by nature only capable of handling 5 or 6 people, tops, in a crowd before I start to twitch and get the spins. Fortunately my father-in-law's camp is the least overwhelmed of the bunch, featuring a mere 6 adults, 2 mobile children, one toddler, three dogs, and a partridge in a pear tree. (More like crows in pine trees at ungodly morning hours...trying to sleep here!)

This is all to say it's a tiring time of year, but only because it's so full of life. I could go on about it, or I could simply point to this picture of Greta. My parting advice...fear not the nap, for it is a blessing.



Current regular hours: Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday 12-4.
Please visit our website: www.bangorwineandcheese.com
Don't forget to catch Eric each Tuesday at 4:40pm on Downtown with Rich Kimball on WZON AM 620. Downtown airs weekdays from 4-6pm.
Wine Of The Week
Bluet Charmat Method
Sparkling Blueberry Wine

"Kneeling in a blueberry patch as little kid, somewhere in Maine, picking and devouring the tart sweet tiny wild blueberries– do you have that memory? I was a little boy and it was through the woods, under the power line where we’d find them in late July. I grew up, moved away, and arrived in California where I met my wife and learned to make wine. We’d come back in the summers, Hannah and I, and meet up with our friends Eric and Meredith. The children played and found their own blueberry patches.

I suppose Bluet began when we wondered why it wasn’t a thing–why didn’t we see wild blueberry wine all over Maine? So in my aunt and uncle’s barn we fermented a thousand pounds of wild blues. That was August 2014. It didn’t taste bad! That’s what people told us and so we sold the wine and made more next year. Now we’re making a whole lot, with the dedicated help of Ed and Davis in the winery (we outgrew the old barn) and in partnerships with families who tend the fields. If you haven’t seen one, a blueberry field is extraordinary and ancient. This is the original blueberry, a stone age fruit that you don’t plant. It just grows on its own here in Maine the way it has for 10,000 years. Bluet is truly unique. Made with only a single amazing ingredient. We are lucky to be doing this and happy you found us. Your support helps the family farms sustain their unique Maine way of life. And drinking Bluet does your body good while keeping it all very local. - Michael Terrien

The folks behind Bluet have come up with a lovely new package for this, their Charmat method blueberry wine. Charmat is the style of bubbles most commonly seen in Prosecco, a single stage process that produces sparkling wine at a lower price point and thus is made more accessible by both cost and turnaround (as opposed to Traditional or Champenoise method, wherein you've got a two step process that takes longer and requires more labor.)

I love this wine. It is so Maine. Unadulterated, pristine. Bluet is pure blueberry, made by a passionate winemaker who honed his trade on the other side of our fair nation, then applied his skills to what Maine is all about...working hard alongside friends and family by day, and celebrating with your efforts by night with great food and drink.

I should add, we have this same wine in single-serve cans! Take 'em on your next adventure!
Bluet Sparkling Blueberry Wine "Charmat Method"
W.O.W. Price: $20.69
Bangor Wine And Cheese
86 Hammond Street,
Bangor, ME 04401
(207) 942 3338