We at Pangea now have a premium by-the-bottle wine program that we are extremely proud to offer our customers.
This program is the result of months of careful planning by our bar manager Drew Maurer, working with our spirits distributor Brenden Zebroski.
“It took me about six months to get all the wines I wanted onto the list,” Maurer said.
Their efforts, we believe, really show in the quality of the wines that we now offer.
Wine can be a tricky item to sell, simply because once a bottle is opened, it’s only viable for a few days.
“Selling wine is a risky endeavour,” said Zebroski, a sale’s representative for our distributor, Johnson Brothers Liquor Company. “It is a living, breathing entity, and it has a very short shelf life. After about 5-7 days it becomes vinegar, and the only thing you can do throw it away, or cook with it.”
Often, a week is not enough time to sell all four glasses from a bottle. That greatly limits us in what we can afford to offer.
“But if you’re doing a by-the-bottle program, that opens up all kinds of different avenues to present premium wines to the customers without having to take that risk of not being able to sell it,” Zebroski said.
We have taken full advantage. Our reserve wine list is a well balanced mix of reds, whites, and a bubbly. Each is incredible in its own way, but we are probably most proud of our Orin Swift wines.
In the last few years, this region of the country has become obsessed with Orin Swift — and with good reason. Orin Swift wines are well crafted, unique and absolutely delicious.
In some ways, what really puts this wine over the top is the custom artwork on each of their bottles. In fact, it was this artwork that first caught Maurer’s eye. (Though, it was the quality of the wine that landed it on our list.)
The owner and maker of Orin Swift, a man named David Swift Phinney, stumbled across wine making in the mid-1990s by accident. While he was in college, he spent a semester in Italy, where he fell in love with wine. After he graduated, he took a job as a temporary harvest worker at a winery in California.
“Deciding that if he was going to work this hard, it would eventually have to be for himself,” the Orin Swift website reads. “So, in 1998 he founded Orin Swift Cellars.”
Phinney’s first really popular wine was a Zinfandel blend that he called The Prisoner. The wine, with its perfectly blended flavor, and it’s catchy artwork, soared in popularity across the United States.
“He started this cult-like following with this really unique, well put together red blend that had this crazy artwork,” Zebroski said.
And his wines have only gained in popularity since.
Our program is geared mainly toward guests who attend private parties in our special events room. That’s a place where it makes sense for guests to buy a bottle for the table, rather than individual glasses. But, this program is also available to anyone interested in trying our top shelf wines.
You can buy one of our Orin Swifts, or any of the other premium bottles, any time at our bar. Just ask for our reserve wine list!