The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Orange Wine at our Phoenix Wine Shop
We’re certainly not experts, but we’ve learned a thing or two about orange wine in our two and a half years of tasting, selling, and chatting all things natural wine at the market (emphasis on tasting – we are very thorough with our market research!).
what is natural wine?
some insight from your favorite Phoenix natural wine shop, Monsoon Market What is natural wine, you may ask…. whispers of “biodynamic farming” and “orange wine” may have been uttered by a friend or colleague that leave you contemplating questions like what actually is in the wine we have been drinking for years? What constitutes a natural wine selection from an unnatural one? How can you tell the difference? Where do you go to find natural wine? Natural wine is, more than anything else, a mindset and careful approach to winemaking. You’ll find winemakers all around the world who believe in…
natural wine | June 2024
You know us, always drinking and talking about the best natural wine in Phoenix. Check out the latest natural wine pick from us at Monsoon Market! These natural wines are always straight out of our Natty & Nice Wine Club, now on the shelves ready for you to pick up and enjoy yourselves. Müller-Ruprecht Rot Region: Pfalz, Germany Grapes: Lemberger We’re featuring a German wine that showcases the experimental side of natural winemaking, a bottle that has been described as giving the “spiritual middle finger”. Weingut Müller-Reprecht is a 400-year-old family estate currently run by a young couple that has…
Best Non-Alcoholic Drinks of 2024
It’s Dry January at Monsoon Market What is Dry January? Last year Misch participated in Dry January, or “Damp Jan” as we sometimes called her (it’s hard to cut out alcohol entirely when you own a natural wine shop). Being dry in January essentially means saying “no thanks” to alcohol for the entire month. While the impact varies from person to person, some typical advantages include: It’s really important to note that these benefits are not universal, and everyone can respond differently. Additionally, if someone has concerns about their relationship with alcohol or experiences withdrawal symptoms, it’s cool to seek…
Monsoon Market 2024 ins & outs
Without further ado, here is the official 2024 Monsoon Market Ins & Outs list! It’s been a long and eventful year, and making this list was a fun way for us to get excited about what’s to come. This list reflects the ways we have learned from past mistakes (e.g., forgetting to drink enough water, wearing clothes with faulty zippers to work) and the things we would like to do more of (e.g., supporting our friends’ businesses, dreaming big, supporting the scene). It’s important to note this list is quite silly and unserious. We certainly don’t mean to suggest that…
Mother’s Day natural wine gift guide 2024
Mother’s Day is right around the corner (literally, Sunday May 12th), and we know you all are probably thinking “wait it is??!!” No matter how hard we try, it sneaks up on us every year, but it’s no excuse not to give the hard working and amazing women in our lives some extra TLC. We’ve heard through the grape vine (pun intended) that this Mother’s Day, all she wants is some peace and quiet, and a delicious glass of natural wine. (Even Forbes wrote about natural wine for Mother’s Day!) You’re in luck, because we have a banger bottle curation…
natural wine we’re currently drinking | spring 2024
New natural wine picks from us at Monsoon Market! These natural wines are straight out of our Natty & Nice Wine Club, now on the shelves ready for you to pick up and enjoy yourselves. Les Athlètes du Vin “Gardein de Bulles” Region: Loire Valley, France Grapes: 100% Chenin Blanc With springtime comes blooming blossoms and buttercups – all we’re missing are bubbles! That’s where this brut nature Gardein de Bulles comes in. This sparkling wine is a grown-up wine, made only from chenin blanc grapes coming from vines that are over fifty years of age, planted over Turonian limestone….
Squirrel Flower Haul
Squirrel Flower is the stage name of indie musician Ella O’Connor Williams and was the nickname the musician gave herself as a child. Ella recently released her third LP, Tomorrow’s Fire, and just finished touring the U.S. Tomorrow’s Fire features Ella’s powerful voice and impressive guitar skills, with tracks that Pitchfork describes as “ambitious but not unbridled” and “sweltering, explosive rock songs”. After her debut album, I Was Born Swimming, Rolling Stone named Squirrel Flower as an “Artist You Need to Know”. Earlier this month, Ella played a show at the beloved Phoenix venue, Rebel Lounge, and made a quick…
Hot Winemakers – Valentine’s Day Blog
Here at Monsoon Market, we’re always talking about what’s hot. The hottest items are what excites us, what tantalizes our taste buds, what stimulates our senses and visually stuns us. What we haven’t told you, is that some of our hottest bottles of natural wine are made by even hotter winemakers. This Valentine’s Day, we thought it would be good fun to highlight the people behind these wines, the hotties behind the bottle. Grab a glass, you’ll be thirsty after this one. The Lovebirds Winemaker(s): Alanna LaGamba, Martin Otto Wörner Wine Label(s): Vin de LaGamba, Marto Location: Reinhessen, Germany Alanna…
natural wine we’re currently drinking | march 2024
Buona Notte Rosalba 2022 Grape: Pinot Grigio Region: Columbia Gorge, WA Buona Notte is the brainchild of Graham Markel, whose family has a taste for adventure and a love for culinary exploration. Their family journey takes place all over the world. Young Markel’s early years included tasting kangaroo in Australia’s McLaren Vale at the tender age of five and sipping Campari and soda in Florentine palazzos at age ten (little did they know it had alcohol!). It’s no surprise that these globetrotting escapades laid the foundation for a lifelong passion for food and drink for Markel. He was able to…
10 gifts for Valentines Day from Monsoon Market
‘Tis the season for pink and red candy foils and heart-shaped love notes written in inky black. Valentine’s Day originated as a feast day honoring a martyr named Valentine and has since become a significant landmark as a single day focused on celebrating your loved ones. Often, Valentine’s Day is commercialized as a holiday that only applies if you have a romantic partner to share it with. This downplays the love we get to bear witness to and partake in every single day – in fleetingly shared moments with strangers, in laughing so hard with your friends it feels like…
Vanessa Hudgens at Monsoon Market: Koral’s Birthday Wish
December 9th, 1993… Koral was born. December 9th, 2023… Vanessa Hudgens strolls into Monsoon Market! This past Saturday (Koral’s B-day) Misch was holding down the market when none other than Vanessa Hudgens walks in. We all know her, most notably from High School Musical and the cinematic masterpiece that is Spring Breakers, and probably would have freaked out seeing her IRL. But not Misch, the super cool cat she is, didn’t even bug out. She welcomed her into the market and let Vanessa wander throughout the market in peace, keeping it low-key dressed in a furry bucket hat and the…