Sometimes when you least expect it, you're blessed with something fun and unexpected. I have a friend named Cindy Cosco. Though I have never met her personally, she's been a great friend online. She is living the dream! And the dream is coming true. I will admit, we wine bloggers would probably love nothing more than to create and bottle our own wines someday. It's harder than it seems. You have to know when to leave your past life and start your new one. You have to labor and toil and work hard! Cindy did just that.
For years, Cindy worked in law enforcement on the east coast. She grew up in an Italian family who had a passion for wine. They instilled this in her. After realizing that wine was her true calling, she finally made the move to the west coast and hasn't looked back. She began her wine industry career as a harvest intern at Chateau St. Jean in Sonoma County, eventually staying on full-time in their lab. After a few years, she made the move to Crushpad, the world-famous custom crush facility in San Francisco, where she currently works as a lab manager and also creats her own wine there, the Passaggio Unoaked Chardonnay. The recently-released second vintage(2008) is made from grapes sourced from Lodi, California. I received a sample from her recently and was thrilled to try it!
The 2008 Passaggio Unoaked Chardonnay is dubbed "New Generation Chardonnay." I think any generation would love it! I certainly did and I'm no spring chicken! The bottle, which sells for $13.00, is a steal! It is light but certainly not without a medium-bodied mouthfeel at the midpalate. Loaded with lush tropical flavors and stone fruits (I got a lot of peach and apricot). The finish is crisp and clean, making it a nice wine to pair up with poultry and seafood dishes as well as light pasta dishes and salads. Very enjoyable. This wine can be purchased through her website: www.passaggiowines.com. Cindy also has a great blogsite which is on the bloglist to the right of this page. Please check it out!
I wish Cindy the best of luck in her future ventures and am hoping to see more of her talent shine. She's definitely a role model for a future generation of budding winemakers. Some day, I hope to visit Crushpad and meet her in person!
I'm with you. Full disclosure here, I used to work with Cindy at Crushpad and I think she's a wonderful winemaker as well as a great person. This wine is easily worth twice the price so fear not a few bucks for shipping. Luckily I live close enoughy to pick it up at Crushpad, which I do regularly.
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