Seven of Hearts - Part 1: White Wines

We joined owner and wine maker Byron Dooley for a flight at the Seven of Hearts tasting room in Carlton, OR. With a proclivity for old-world style French wines, Byron and his wife Dana moved to the Willamette Valley after leaving their tech careers in Silicon Valley and establishing their passions in Napa. Dana is the owner of locally based Honest Chocolates with two locations and a candymaking kitchen in the same space as the tasting room.

Inspired by classical French wine labels, the wines at Seven of Hearts depict an old playing card embellished with a crest-like image of one of the couple's cats, Seven.

I'll be sharing my tasting notes for these wines in thee parts this week - our first tasting notes will cover the two whites that Byron shared with us.

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un petit séjour à la cote d'azur

Sunday was another epically gorgeous summer day here in Cleveland. I really don't know what we've done to deserve such a great summer this year. Regardless, it was the perfect setting for a poolside wine tasting with a good number of the folks from Bonjour Cleveland!, the French language Meet-up group I run.

Exploring the wine regions of France since February, our glasses have traveled nearly everywhere - Burgundy, Bordeaux, Alsace, Champagne, and the Loire. This month the group chose to sample the wines of southern France including Provence, Languedoc, and Roussilon (often considered together with the Languedoc). Hosted by George at his lovely home in the village of Chagrin Falls (quel drôle nom, eh?) we were anything but chagrined by the gorgeous garden, the sunny skies, and the lovely wines of the Côte d'Azur. (Note- technically the Côte d'Azur runs from Italy just into the Provence region... but hey, it sounds nice!)

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