Natural Grocery

Independently owned, organic grocery store. Our Annex serves prepared foods and offers a selection of wine and beer. Our florists are here to help you with fresh local cuts and dried bouquets.

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10367 San Pablo Ave.
(510) 526-1155
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10387 San Pablo Ave.
(510) 526-5150
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1336 Gilman St.
(510) 526-2456
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Home / Archives for Wine Spotlight

2022 Bubble Bash Sale & Tasting

December 6, 2022 by The Natural Grocery Company

We are having a sale on sparking wines at The Annex, 10387 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, December 9-11, 2022. 10% off on single bottles of bubbly or 20% off on a case (12 bottles, mix & match ok).
There will be a tasting event at The Annex on Sunday, December 11, 2022 from 1pm to 4pm. Come taste Old World versus New World Sparkling Wines!
21+ for tasting and a $20 tasting fee. If you choose to purchase a case of bubbly, on Sunday, December 11, your tasting fee will be put towards your purchase.

Filed Under: Annex, Blog, Events, Special Events, Wine Spotlight

Spring Wine Price Crush Sale is May 22-30, 2022

May 15, 2022 by The Natural Grocery Company

Summer is rapidly approaching and that means it is time for our May Wine Price Crush Sale!

May 22-30, 2022 is the perfect opportunity to stock up on your favorite wines and maybe try out a few new ones.

The Annex, 10387 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA 94530

Filed Under: Annex, Events, Wine Spotlight, Wine Words and Beer Notes

October Wine Price Crush Sale is October 17-24, 2021

October 13, 2021 by The Natural Grocery Company

Autumn is Harvest Time

and that means it is time for our October Wine Price Crush Sale!

October 17-24, 2021 is the perfect opportunity to stock up on your favorite wines and maybe try out a few new ones.

Here are just a few highlights of what you may find in our department at

The Annex, 10387 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA 94530

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Reds

Louis Antoine Luyt El Mismo Pais: France meets Chile! Another great natural wine from this producer who has become a favorite of ours throughout the years.

Heitz Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon: A great wine from an iconic Napa producer – spicy, lush & rich.

Guido Porro Barolo: Expressive, generous, sublime! This is a vintage to be remembered for one of the world’s greatest wines.

Olga Raffault Chinon: Full body, complex, well balanced Cabernet Franc. Drink it now or for the next several decades.

 

Sparkling

J. Lasalle Champagne is elegant, festive and delicious. It is the perfect compliment to any celebration.

 

White

Biodynamic Sancerre has finisse, freshness and a minerality that makes it delicious for the holiday table.

Filed Under: Annex, Events, Wine Spotlight, Wine Words and Beer Notes

The Bubble Sale

December 3, 2020 by The Natural Grocery Company

The Bubble Sale

Friday through Sunday

December 11-13, 2020

10% off any bottle of bubbly

20% off mixed cases of bubbly

 

The El Cerrito Prepared Food Annex

10387 San Pablo Avenue

El Cerrito, CA 94530

(510) 526-5150

Filed Under: Annex, Events, Holiday Tips, Special Events, Wine Spotlight

Autumn Wine Price Crush is October 18-25, 2020

October 13, 2020 by The Natural Grocery Company

Stop by The Annex and stock up for the holidays!

Filed Under: Blog, Wine Spotlight, Wine Words and Beer Notes

Wine Price Crush May 24-31, 2020

May 20, 2020 by The Natural Grocery Company

Filed Under: Annex, Events, Wine Spotlight

Wine is Food

March 9, 2017 by The Natural Grocery Company

Wine Is Food

By Jake Wright

 

Eric Asimov, for those of you who may not be familiar with his name, writes about wine for the New York Times. I really like his writing and his perspectives, so I was quite pleased to read his recent article “Want to Pick Better Bottles? Repeat After Me: Wine Is Food” (NYT, 3/6/2017).  In his clear and compelling way, Asimov describes to a T what we are all about here in our Annex Wine department. It practically reads like an endorsement of our approach.

 

For us at the Natural Grocery Co., wine is food, it is an agricultural product. We pay close attention to how the grapes were grown, and how they were treated in the cellar. I choose wines that, besides being delicious, are produced at least sustainably and at best regeneratively. My favorite stories from winemakers include how they took an abused parcel of land and brought it back, literally, to life.

 

There are certainly many people for whom wine is just a drink, and there are a lot of options out there. But for those who want more than just a cup of liquid unwind, there’s more to the story.

 

With customers, I often use the analogy of bread. Imagine on one end of the spectrum the highly processed, industrial, chemical-laden, food-like artifice such as Wonder Bread. This clearly makes some people happy. On the other end would be a naturally leavened loaf, made with grain from a known source (or even a known field), freshly ground, kneaded by hand, unhurried, and that is a clear reflection of its maker. Bread full of life, and deeply delicious to boot.

 

It’s the same with wine. I absolutely agree with Asimov that “a simple way to understand wine, to elevate the quality of what you consume and the pleasure you take in it, is to treat wine as if it were another staple of the table, just as you would the produce, meat and bread that you shop for and eat.”

 

Now, it was true for me, and is true for many (and Asimov also makes this point), that wine is one of the last things we think about as we procure quality ingredients for the table. I know in my life it took me a while to learn to prefer food I could relate to, where I knew the farmer and knew the story of how and where that food was grown, and where and how that food was processed. I wasn’t born a foodie: I’ve earned that title.

 

So now, I expect that for a significant percentage of the food I eat, and wine I drink, I know its backstory. Like all food we eat, wine is a product of the earth and an expression of our relationship to it, for better or worse. I try to choose better, and ultimately, that adds to my pleasure at table and sense of connectedness to the community and land around me.

 

Pleasure, connectedness, delicious clean wine and food. Surely these are among the best things in life, and for that, I can be grateful every day.

Filed Under: Blog, Wine Spotlight, Wine Words and Beer Notes

Why Drive to Napa?

September 28, 2016 by WineAndBeer

Taste 30 small production wines at the ANNEX for just $10!

We are hosting our 5th bi-annual Grand Wine Tasting and Price Crush Wine Sale. On Sunday, October 9th from 2 to 5pm come to the Prepared Food Annex (10387 San Pablo Avenue) to taste 30 wines by artisan producers. The ticket price for the event is $10. This may be the most affordable wine tasting event in the Bay Area!

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Annex Wine & Beer handpicks products to bring you clean, natural, sustainably-produced wines, a large number of which are certified organic and biodynamic.

If you would like to read more about us and other natural wine shops in the East Bay, check out this article.

Filed Under: Annex, Blog, Events, Special Events, Wine Spotlight, Wine Words and Beer Notes Tagged With: Biodynamic Wine, Dry-Farmed Wine, Grand Wine Tasting, Natural Wine, Organic Wine, Price Crush, Sustainable Wine, Wine Sale, Wine Tasting

New Arrival!

July 26, 2016 by The Natural Grocery Company

Down Under Delight!

By Jake Wright

While all of our wines shine, every now and then we bring in a standout that we really want you to know about.  Just in, the Pyramid Valley 2015 Marlborough Pinot Gris/Pinot Blanc is a wine of such vibrancy and focus I just have to sing its praises. There is a lot going on in this complex beauty: intense aromatics that open with time, a lush nuanced palate, and a long, lingering, beguiling finish.

It was a standout even among other wines from Pyramid Valley, as I discovered recently when I tasted with winemaker Claudia Weersing here at Annex Wine & Beer. She and her husband Mike surely do make some of the world’s eminent natural wines, with deep devotion to biodynamic principles and the expression of their unique terroir.

This is a wine that takes you places.

Pyramid Valley

Hutchison Family Vineyard, Marlborough

Pinot Gris/Pinot Blanc 2015

$32.99

Also available from Claudia and Mike:

Pyramid Valley

Angel Flower Pinot Noir

Canterbury 2009

$73.99

Weersing & JW (1)

Jake Wright (Annex Wine & Beer Buyer/Manager) and Claudia Weersing (Co-proprietor of Pyramid Valley Vineyards) just after a phenomenal tasting of her wines.

Filed Under: Annex, Wine Spotlight, Wine Words and Beer Notes

Wine Spotlight

June 2, 2016 by The Natural Grocery Company

Loving the Lighter Reds

By Jake Wright, Annex Wine & Beer Buyer/Manager

007

My love affair. It almost didn’t happen at all. It was a chance meeting, but it irrevocably, irreversibly turned my world upside down.

My wife made a simple seafood stew, with rockfish, shrimp, some clams and mussels – a working parent’s cioppino. Now, what wine to pair with this? I didn’t want a white, and pairing a red felt like a little too much. I was about to default to a rosé when I remembered I had already picked out a wine, by reputation only, for a meal just like this.

This wine was a Rossese di Dolceacqua, a light and savory red wine from the Lugurian region of Italy.  Think Genoa, La Spezia, even Cinque Terre. This is a rugged land that lives in close relation to the sea, and like all Italian cuisine, the wines and foods of the regions evolved together in time-tested harmony. This is seafood country, with simple stews like my wife made as common fare.

The wine poured a tawny, almost brick-like red. It had intense fruit aroma, with herbal and woody undertones. It was very light bodied, and upon tasting, the savory, herbal notes were enticingly apparent. A bite of stew, then another sip of wine… and that’s when Cupid shot his little vinous arrow. What a heavenly match!  It was one of those elusive, serendipitous moments when the whole far outweighed the sum of the parts.  That Rosesse and that stew danced together in the most delightful, delectable, delicious way.

I read somewhere that if you find Rossese in the States, it’s because someone really loved this wine and felt it needed to be imported. This is not anyone’s definition of commercial success, but rather a soulful appreciation for obscure, underdog varietals rooted in local traditions and cuisine. In fact, Rossese is deeply rooted along that part of the Mediterranean coast, and thrives even west into Provence, where it is known as Tibouren (and largely made into rosés).

Luckily, I work with an importer who found a lovely Rossese made by a committed, salt-of-the-earth winemaker named Danila Pisano.  If the best wines are a reflection of their maker, then Danila is surely humble, strong, earthy, and mischievous by turns (and by all accounts, she is). She and her longtime boyfriend Tino (whose family owned the vines) work the dizzyingly steep slopes and terraces to bring forth low yields of this thin-skinned, light red grape. It is a labor of love (emphasis on labor) that brings this delicious, relatively unknown wine to our shores.1

But for those who know, the grape and its wine is a delight. Even the iconoclastic Randall Graham of Bonny Doon calls Rossese “one of the coolest grapes on the planet.”2 I wholeheartedly agree, and I am grateful my fortuitous discovery happened to be with one of those meals that take both food and wine into the stratosphere. I had never experienced the pleasures of light, gamey, savory red wines before.

Did it really turn my world upside down? Well, it certainly opened the door to a whole world of heretofore unknown pleasures.  You see, now I chase after all light and bright reds, from snappy Gamays to minerally Zwiegelts, fruity Grolleaus to funky Pipeños.  Put a slight chill on any of these, and savor the warmth of summer and its lighter cuisine.

Wines:

Danila Pisano Rossese di Dolceacqua 2014, $19.99

La Galoche Beaujolais 2014, $14.99

Familie Maier Zweigelt 2014, 1L, $14.99

Les Hautes Noëlles “HéHo” Gamay/Grolleau 2015, $14.99

Viña Maitia “Aupa” Pipeño (Pais) 2015, $10.99

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Filed Under: Annex, Blog, Wine Spotlight, Wine Words and Beer Notes

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EL CERRITO STORE
10367 San Pablo Ave.
(510) 526-1155
Seven days a week 8:30am-8:30pm
EL CERRITO ANNEX
10367 San Pablo Ave.
(510) 526-5150
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1336 Gilman St.
(510) 526-2456
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