Dedalus Wine Shop, Market, & Wine Bar

My husband and I discovered Dedalus soon after we moved to Vermont. My husband has watched almost every wine documentary offered on Netflix. I, on the other hand, have watched maybe one. I’m not the type to be all fancy schmancy or very proper but Dedalus sure is a nice introduction into the world of wine.

So what does Dedalus offer?

Wine, Cheeses & Accouterments for Sale & Free Wine & Cheese Tastings

Dedalus has been the one spot in our area we have frequented the most so far. It has a great selection of wines, cheeses, and accouterments for sale and they are constantly offering free wine and cheese tastings. The prices vary from extremely affordable to extremely maybe not affordable. The cheeses are also stinking delicious. I can clearly tell I’ve graduated from my elementary school cheez whiz days. I was THAT kid that brought in the cheez whiz and had it passed around the whole classroom’s lunch table. #cheeseandcrackersfolife

Wine Club and Cheese Club

In order to sign up for the wine club, my husband sat down with the owner and chose his preferences. So now, every month, we pick up 2-3 bottles of hand-selected wine of which only a few cases circulate each year. On top of that, we receive 10% off everything in the store, and a free cheese at the wine bar. So now my husband has started his own wine collection. Because of this wine collection, he started building a wine cellar in a corner of our basement – He isn’t just placing a rack in a basement, but he’s put up insulation, vapor barriers, and mold resistant walls. There’s even some nice tile flooring. Many of the wines my husband has chosen to receive have to be aged for 7+ years, much to the disappointment of my liver.

Wine Bar

They also have a wine bar where they serve wine (of course), cheese & charcuterie boards and plated dishes. The first time we sat at the wine bar, my husband had brought me there for a quick and early birthday treat. My husband is a recent convert to oyster-lover and I have always been nervous to try them but that day I thought I would be daring and… THEY WERE SO GOOD. Two reasons why I think I liked them, one, I really love mushrooms and oysters have a similar texture and, two, they’re salty and I like salt. By the way, they have dollar oyster happy hour from Tuesdays-Saturdays 4pm-6pm! We haven’t been able to attend during that time but we’re hoping to go soon!

Wine 101 Classes

My favorite thing they offer is the Wine 101 Classes (this may be found on their Events page if available). Here’s a description of their classes straight from the website:

“Want to know what wine to order at a restaurant or how to pick a great bottle off the shelf? Maybe you’re cooking dinner for friends and you want to wow them with a delicious wine pairing. Our Wine 101 class series will help you buy smart and enjoy more. We’ll help you understand the key elements of wine through fun, focused tastings and discussions lead by our experienced wine team.” 

We’ve attended 3 of the 5 classes in the series. We missed the first group class but the lovely Brittany, a certified sommelier and the wine educator at Dedalus, allowed my husband and I to play catch-up and gave us a private first class which we really enjoyed. The first class covered the 5 basic traits of wine: alcohol, acidity, tannin, sweetness and body. These are like the ABC’s of wine knowledge and should be a part of everyone’s vocabulary in order to describe the wine one would like to drink. For example, tannins come from the grape’s skin and will dry your mouth and that’s not something I like in high amounts so now I know to select a wine with either low or medium amounts of tannin.

Class 2 was on white wines. We were given five white wines and had to use the 5 traits of wine to describe them and classify them into types of white wine. Class 3 was similar but it was five red wines. We were unable to attend classes 4 & 5 but class 5 is on Food & Wine Pairings and we would love to attend it one day.

I would highly recommend checking out Dedalus and all it has to offer! Cheers!

*This post is not sponsored.