Event

Vermouth Tasting with Carl Sutton

Monday, December 2, 2013, 6:00-7:30pm
Tickets: $40 for members, $50 for the general public

It is an exciting time for vermouth. Once an essential ingredient in over half the cocktails known, the classic aperitif and bartending staple is being reborn and new ways for its use invented. Yet so many of us are unsure of the origins, ingredients, and possibilities of this fortified wine.

Meet Carl Sutton, owner of Sutton Cellars. Carl is a self-taught winemaker and (we say!) vermouth master. His vermouth defies convention; it is a singular taste, subtly savory and herbal, barely sweet. During this 90 minute tasting seminar, Carl will discuss what makes vermouth truly unique, outline its history (so as to root it in the present), and answer your questions. He will guide you through a comparative tasting of six different vermouths as well as a component tasting of Sutton's blend.

Carl Sutton, a California native, started Sutton Cellars in the fall of 1996, crushing enough grapes to make 350 cases of wine for the first vintage. With six years of prior experience in the wine industry he had learned farming, production, and marketing. From those first vintages a reputation was made for the Carignane grape and a dry rosé, not exactly main- stream wines at the time.

In 2009 Sutton Cellars released the first vermouth in the US in a decade, thus reviving a stagnant yet traditional segment of California's wine history. The vermouth is white wine based and deep yellow in color, with heavy influence from dried orange peel and chamomile with a hint of rosemary. This has been fol- lowed with a digestif wine, also fortified, flavored with green walnuts and spices. The future of the label will rely heavily on these botanical influenced wines.