Exploring Wines at Decant ICT!

If you’re interested in wine and haven’t yet heard of the American Institute of Wine and Food - Wichita Chapter (AIWF), you need to check them out! Their mission is to “[advance] the understanding, appreciation, and quality of wine and food through fun educational experiences,” raising money for scholarship programs. We are 100% behind this, and they do a phenomenal job with events like this year’s Decant ICT, held at the Marriott on Sunday, June 2nd.

This was a wine-lover’s dream come true, walking into a large room with an empty glass in your hand and 100 different wines in front of you to try. Unfortunately we couldn’t try them all and still remember what we were there to do, so we had to pace ourselves, but the plethora of fantastic options made it hard! Several local distributors, liquor stores, and local producers like Grace Hill Winery were there, showing off their products and offering samples of everything. It was magical.

We tried and enjoyed so many things, but here are just a few that we took pictures of in order to go find them again!

(I don’t have detailed tasting notes—we were too busy talking and making friends—but go try these!)

Goldschmidt Vineyard, Katherine Goldschmidt Cabernet Sauvignon

This is a Cab that comes from Alexander Valley, a subregion of Sonoma Valley in California. This was a very pleasant wine to drink, offering the elements you want in a California Cab at a great price, without getting too many oak flavors in the way. Lovely!

This sells for $24 at Jacob Liquor

Tolentino Winemaker’s Selection, Malbec, Uco Valley, Argentina

This was a surprisingly light and smooth Malbec, not as big as some Malbecs, but still with that tobacco note you often find. This is an easy-drinking wine. It’s distributed by Standard Beverage.

Daou Rosé, Paso Robles

This rosé is made with Grenache, and it was delightful!! It was bright and flavorful and overall charming.

Elemental Wines

These are interesting, as the whole wine bottle is aluminum. It’s like canned wine, but a whole bottle! These are lighter and easy to open and recyclable, so if you need something for a picnic or a bike ride or someplace you can’t take glass, here’s another option for you!

Raymond Reserve Selection Merlot, Napa Valley

What a smooth, warm, comforting Merlot! We had this later in the afternoon, and it was a great wrap-up to the day.

We had SUCH a good time at this event, and AIWF did a great job putting it on! Unfortunately, it’ll be a year before Decant ICT comes back. But in the meantime, thankfully, AIWF has several fantastic events throughout the year. We’ll definitely be joining whenever we can. Do yourself a favor and check them out!