Wine List Pick: The Beagle (Manhattan, New York)

Date: 4 December 2012
Wine: Equipo Navazos Manzanilla I Think En Rama
Cuisine: Cocktail-cum-Sherry Bar with Eclectic Bar Menu

Wine List: The Beagle is best known as an Alphabet City cocktail bar. I am avid cocktail enthusiast, but this particular Tuesday it was Sherry I craved. The Beagle lists a fantastic array of bottlings from Jerez, and there always a few so rare they’re not even mentioned on the menu.

Pick: Wanting to explore a few options that evening, I naturally began at the light end of the spectrum. While the lift and finesse of Manzanilla called, I also wanted an expansiveness of flavor more akin to Palo Cortado. So, I picked the Manzanilla “I Think” En Rama from Equipo Navazos. The “en Rama” part of the name was the key to the combo I sought. En Rama wines are very lightly filtered, leaving them with more robust flavor than the Manzanilla style we’re accustomed to drinking.

Having just fled my laptop, on which I’d been tapping all day, I fleeting wondered how this beverage bearing a Darwin-inspired name might inspire the finishing touches of my article in the morning. Hmm….