Parmesan Reggiano Wheel Cutting Cheese Ceremony Thursday, April 2nd 6:00pm

"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink; that's the one thing I'm indebted to her for."  W. C. Fields in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

If you can’t make it to one or our tastings the wine bar is still only open for private events but any night we are here we will take one reservation for the private dining experience in the wine cave.  This week we have Friday and Saturday night available in the Wine Cave!

We have a minimum of 6 people to reserve the table in the Cave but we will take up to 16 people for a curated dinner by Chef Toni.  We must know in advance what food items you want so you will have to coordinate the menu with Toni ahead of time but she can put together any of your favorites from past Wine Bar menus or whatever you want if she has enough notice. The best thing about this table is the view of the wine, we have the largest selection of vintage wine in South Florida and everything is available at a retail price!!  You may want to bring a sweater it is 64 degrees in the wine cave.

I have been touting the quality of a freshly opened wheel of Parmesan Reggiano ever since we opened the wine bar when we cracked the first wheel open.  The experience is unlike any other with this cheese as soon as you open the wheel the cheese starts to oxidize and harden so the freshly opened wheel is so buttery and creamy it is unlike any Parmesan you have ever tasted. 

We will be offering freshly cut 24-month aged Parmesan Reggiano for $29 per pound this evening and you know that the wheel was just cut today!  If you make it to the tasting, you also get to sample the goods before you buy!  Of course, we will be offering over a dozen wines to compliment the cheese and we will be serving a special menu prepared with the freshly cut cheese as well.

This is the second time we are hosting this event as a walk around Happy Hour style event as opposed to a seated event and included with your ticket price is 1 pound of the freshly cut Parmesan Reggiano so everyone leaves with a pound of cheese!

There are only 50 spaces available for this event and the fee for this tasting is $120 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com. 

If you can’t make the event you can place an order on-line or over the phone and have your cheese delivered locally with your wine order, but we will only be delivering to the tri county area on the days we are out delivering wine.  

24 Month Aged Parmesan Reggiano Wheel Cutting Cheese Ceremony

Thursday, April  2^nd

6:00pm

1lb 24 Month Aged Parmesan Reggiano

Price: $29.00

Of course, we will be serving a few wines to accompany the cheese!

2022 Cambria Chardonnay Katherine's Vineyard Santa Maria Valley

Price: $18.00                                 Your Price: $15.84

Fresh fruit and floral aromas dominate the nose; a touch of wet stone complements pink grapefruit, tangerine, citrus blossom, and apple flavors. The oak influence creates a nice mid-palate as the wine shows a balanced acidity that carries through the long finish.

2014 Gary Farrell Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay Russian River Valley

Price: $60.00                                 Sale Price: $49.00

(96 Points)  Dark gold in color, this is a memorably luxurious and vivacious wine, tangy in grapefruit, burnt orange and cardamom. Layered and complex, it evolves as it opens to a lingering tease of butterscotch topped in nutmeg. It is an outstanding vision of an outstanding site, a wine for the ages. — Virginie Boone   Issue Date 6-1-2017 Wine Enthusiast

2013 Scholium Project Farina Vineyards Dulcissima Camilla Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Mountain

Price: $28.00                                 Your Price: $24.64

This was another fantastic year for Farina, the rocky, east-facing Sauvignon Blanc vineyard high up on Sonoma Mountain. The vineyard produced a third more fruit than it normally does-- and we were offered more rows by Joe Votek, who farms it. This allowed us to make the most LSB that we have ever made-- and to make Camilla for the first time since 2007. For reasons that I can barely divine, this wine often takes a year to ferment; sometimes more. We bottled the dry barrels of the wine as LSB in March, and have let the remaining barrels finish fermentation gently. They are now gradually reaching completion; the additional months in barrel and on the lees changes the character of the wine substantially: this wine is darker and less fresh than LSB, more broad, less etched. I have studied the 2007 wines carefully; the bottles of Camilla age better than the fresher LSB; in some ways, they take longer to show themselves.

2022 La Spinetta Ca di Pian Barbera d'Asti Superiore DOCG, Italy

Price: $31.50                                 Your Price: $27.72

Aromas of blueberry, wet earth and a hint of orange peel. Full body with bright acidity and lots of intensity but balanced and silky-textured, an ultra-fine Barbera that combines richness with finesse.

2022 Finca Villacreces Ribera del Duero Pruno

Price: $27.75                                 Your Price: $24.42

(92 Points) As I've often heard and seen in this vintage, the result of the 2022 Pruno has been much better than expected after a torrid summer and an early harvest. The wine keeps its balance and poise, its fruit-driven personality and the approachability from previous years. It has contained ripeness, 14.05% alcohol, clean aromas and a juicy and velvety texture. Highly drinkable. It's a blend of 94% Tinto Fino, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Merlot. 575,651 bottles, 10,000 magnums and 100 double magnums produced, so availability shouldn't be a problem.  Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

2019 Marqués de Griñón Dominio de Valdepusa Svmma Varietalis

Price: $35.00                                 Your Price: $30.80

Features an elegant and complex aroma of berries, with mineral and spicy tones.  It is a wine made with the three grape varieties grown at Dominio de Valdepusa: Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot.

2020 No Girls Double Lucky Walla Walla

Price: $51.00                                 Your Price: $44.88

(94 Points) This super double secret probation proprietary blend only tells you its name, aromas - sweet floral notes of jasmine and gardenia, with oodles of blackcap raspberries - and flavors - black cherries, smoked paprika, tobacco and espresso. The acidity is borderline tingly, and the tannins are plush. —Michael Alberty, Wine Enthusiast

2021 Raymond Vineyard & Cellar Reserve Merlot Napa

Price: $38.75                                 Your Price: $34.10

Dark fruit aromas of black plum, blackberry and black cherry greet the nose with nuances of rose petal. The medium to full-bodied palate has a silky texture with a lovely depth and fresh fruit flavors layered with notes of chocolate, espresso, and spice cake. This is a rich, ripe, and round wine with good concentration and smooth finish.

Blend: 85% Merlot, 7% Petite Sirah, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Malbec

2022 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Napa

Price: $37.50                                 Sale Price: $27.50

(92 Points) "A solid representation of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, this wine sources fruit from St. Helena down to Carneros, with the bulk of the blend coming from the Wappo Hill property in Stags Leap. All five Bordeaux varieties are included in the blend. Fermentation begins with a cold soak in stainless steel, followed by 26 days on skins, and 18 months of ageing in 31% new French oak. The wine opens with powerful Kirsch aromatics, lifted by bright Bing cherry, warm baking spices, new wood cedar, and white pepper. It is plush and layered on the palate, with black-toned fruit and robust, lingering tannins that carry through a long finish of dark red and black fruit, warming spices, and mineral tension. A balanced expression of power and fruit-forward ripeness, this vintage showcases both depth and structure, making for a bold yet polished Napa Cabernet."  - Jonathan Cristaldi, Decanter, February 2025

2021 Brassfield Estate Winery Cabernet Sauvignon High Valley, USA

Price: $23.50                   Your Price: $20.68

(94 points) This bottling is deep with aromas of black plum, cassis, violet, black licorice and earth on the nose. The flavors present youthful blackberry, blueberry, citrus zest and dried herbs, wrapped around dark chocolate, integrated toasty oak, black truffle, mineral and a long, supple finish. Hold or drink until 2035. — Tonya Pitts  Wine Enthusiast

Formerly known as 'High Serenity Ranch Vineyard.'

2019 Palazzo Left Bank Red Cuvee Napa

Price: $48.75                                 Your Price: $42.90

(91 Points) The 2019 Left Bank Red Cuvée is 50% Cabernet Sauvignon and 25% each Cabernet Franc and Merlot, all aged 20 months in 60% new French oak. Gentle herb nuances bump up against cherries and raspberries on the nose, while the medium-bodied palate is suave and supple, ending in a wash of soft, powdery tannins. Wine Advocate

2017 REYNVAAN IN THE HILLS SYRAH WALLA WALLA

Price: $90.00                                 Your Price: $79.20

(94 Points) Incorporating a whopping 10% Viognier, the 2017 In The Hills comes from the Foothills in the Sun Vineyard (the same vineyard as the Foothills Reserve) and was aged 11 months in 25% new oak. It offers a more rounded, opulent, softer style (no doubt due to the high Viognier) as well as lots of meaty dark fruits, toasted spice, leather, and chocolate aromas and flavors. It's another beautiful, fleshy, classy Syrah to enjoy over the coming 7-8 years, if not longer. (Drink between 2020-2029) Jeb Dunnuck

2022 Penfolds Bin 28 Shiraz Barossa

Price: $30.00                                 Your Price: $26.40

A big bouquet with black raspberry and blackberry fruit notes of black olive tapenade and toasty oak spice.  Plush velvety tannins here on the tongue with a good amount of dark raspberry and plum fruit on the tongue, notes of that spice and earth, black olive tapenade on the finish.  finish 45+        Excellent

2012 The Mega Malbec Company Artist Series Blend by Puro Uno Mendoza

Price: $100.00                              Your Price: $88.00

Dark black and black plum fruit here on the nose with notes of black olive tapenade, dried herbs and violet floral notes, nice evolution and complexity here on the nose. A very balanced wine on the tongue, big and chewy with lots of ripe plum and cherry fruit with sweet herbs and an array of that spice and nuance from the nose coming through on the finish, lovely freshness and balance, this wine is drinking beautifully but will still last for a decade or more in your cellar. Finish 50+ Most Excellent

Menu

Prosciutto De Parma

Fresh Cut 24 Month Aged Parmesan Reggiano

Parmesan White Truffle Steak Fries

Cheese Tortellini with Bacon Dust and Parmesan Crème

Prosciutto, Parmesan, Balsamic, Fig Pizza with Lemon Citrus Zest

Chicken Parmesan Sliders

This is a seated tasting and is limited to 50 tasters and the fee for this event is $120 + tax, which includes 1 pound of freshly cut 2-year aged Parmesan Reggiano.  For reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com

A bit about Parmigiano Reggiano

Parmigiano Reggiano is produced exclusively in the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna to the left of the Reno river, and Mantua to the right of the Po river: this is the area hosting the farms where the cattle are fed on locally grown forage. The feeding of cattle complies with the norms of a strict specification that bans the use of silage, fermented feeds and animal flour.

The milk from the morning and the previous evening is poured into the traditional upturned bell-shaped copper vats. It takes about 550 litres of milk to produce each wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano. The milk slowly and naturally coagulates with the addition of rennet and a whey starter, rich in starter cultures, from the previous day’s processing.

The curd which forms is then broken down by the master cheese-maker into minuscule granules using a traditional tool called “spino”.

This is where fire comes into the picture, in a cooking process which reaches 55 degrees centigrade, after which the cheesy granules sink to the bottom of the cauldron forming a single mass.

After about fifty minutes the cheese-maker removes the cheese mass which will give rise to two twin wheels.

Cut into two parts and wrapped in the typical linen cloth, the cheese is then placed in a mould which will give it its final shape.

A casein plate with a unique and sequential alphanumeric code is applied to each wheel: it is its identity card which makes it possible to trace its entire production back to its origins, anytime and anywhere.

After a few hours, a special marking band engraves the month and year of production onto the cheese, as well as its cheese factory registration number and the unmistakable dotted inscriptions around the complete circumference of the cheese wheel.

After a few days, the wheels are immersed in a saturated solution of water and salt: it is a process of salting by osmosis. This last passage closes the production cycle of Parmigiano Reggiano and starts its maturation period.

The story of Parmigiano-Reggiano is a long one, and also a slow one, following the natural rhythm of the seasons.

In fact, the minimum maturation time is 12 months, the longest among all the PDO cheeses, and only at this point can it be decided if each individual wheel is worthy of the name it was given at its birth, and therefore continue the maturation up to 24, 36, 40 months and more.

After 12 months, the Consortium experts carry out a test called “quality inspection” on all the wheels: each wheel is tapped with a hammer and the trained ear of the quality inspector recognises any defects inside the cheese that may compromise quality.

The conforming wheels are marked with the hot-iron brand thus becoming Parmigiano Reggiano. All identifying marks and signs are removed from any wheels which do not meet the PDO requirements.

The quality control identifies three cheese categories:

“first-grade” Parmigiano Reggiano: the cheese that fully complies with the production specifications. It is marked with the hot-iron brand.

“medium-grade” Parmigiano Reggiano: the cheese that shows minor or moderate defects in the structure of its paste and/or on the rind, yet that do not alter the typical organoleptic characteristics of the product. These wheels are marked with the hot-iron brand, but they can be recognised through the parallel grooves engraved all around the cheese rind.

“de-rinded” cheese: the cheese that shows major defects is downgraded by eliminating the marks of origin through the removal of the rind (a few millimetres). Therefore, this cheese cannot be called Parmigiano Reggiano and refer to the PDO in any way.

Starting from the 18th month of maturation, dairies may request the Consortium to affix an additional mark on first-grade Parmigiano Reggiano:

PREMIUM or EXPORT mark: it gives trading companies and consumers a further indication of the quality of Parmigiano Reggiano.

These marks can be affixed also on the packaging of the cheese selected in this way.