Wine; it's the unofficial official drink of brunch and college students worldwide. Some people just don't know or understand the difference between sh*t and great wine, which is fine, but in the eyes of a professional winemaker, that'd just be absurd. Winemakers are some of the most educated wine snobs on the face of the planet, which includes winemaker Charles Smith. Now Charles just released a new wine called POPUP, which is what I'll be discussing today.
What's the deal?
Curated by winemaker Charles Smith, POPUP is a sparkling wine (aka a white wine) that will be available nationwide beginning this November 2019 with suggested retail price of $14.99. It's meant to be served chill (duh), has an alcohol content of 13%, and is made in Washington State. The wine can be found in restaurants across the country and in Target stores. A nice thing about POPUP is that it's an approachable and accessible wine for everyone, with an innovative pop-off bottle cap top that requires the use of a beer bottle opener in order for it to be opened... I'm sure most of you already have one or more of these bottle openers. While Smith is known for having black and white wine bottle labels, POPUP is the first wine in the Wines of Substance portfolio to be released with a full color label.
What else is there to know?
With roots in Washington state - the fastest growing wine region in the country, Charles’ wines are distributed in all U.S. states and multiple countries around the globe. His winery, Jet City, is the largest urban winery on the West Coast and located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. Smith’s wines continue to receive broad recognition from leading wine publications such as Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and Wine & Spirits with 165 scores of 95 points and above and 632 scores of 90 points and above... in layman's terms, his wines do really well and taste amazing, and just so happen to be the wines that you'd want to be drinking, according to the experts. Wine Spectator named K Vintners Powerline Syrah (ranked #2) and SIXTO Uncovered Chardonnay (ranked #13) two of the top 100 wines to drink in 2017, and this year marks Charles Smith’s 20th Anniversary in Washington wine and a new color chapter for his company.
In case you're wondering what I'm talking about, Charles Smith has an array of wines under his company, Wines of Substance. Wineries include K Vintners, Sixto, ViNO CasaSmith, Substance, and B.Leighton. Smith also sells magnums of wine on his website, but they start at $100 per pop...up and are strictly 2017 and 2016 varietals, meaning that they were harvested in 2016 and 2015. Asides from POPUP, Smith's wine range from $12 to $220 per bottle, meaning that there's something for everyone in the collection... including POPUP; duh.
Being the first journalist in New York State to have tried the wine myself, I'll say this; it's a real banger... literally. I've also had the opportunity to meet Charles Smith in person, which was a real pleasure, and I'm sure that he'd approve of this guide to drinking wine... since he's the expert after all.