Welcome to the D’Aquila-Phillips Wine Cellar! Our site is dedicated to the life of the individual most responsible for introducing me to the world of wine, Mary Kay D’Aquila.
I’m Scott Phillips the host of this site, which we call DP Wine Cellar for short. It’s an e-extension of our physical wine cellars. One north and one south. Our site will offer insights into wines, vintners, wineries, wine travel, and more. Our preferred method will be to do this via storytelling. Why? Because a good glass of wine always seems to taste a bit better when shared over a story or two.
This site is also focused on having unpretentious fun around the subject of wine and what we like to drink. No snobbery here – just solid wines, real experiences, and our honest reactions, thoughts, and opinions. We buy everything we hold and everything we review. We’re beholden to no one and we’d have it no other way. Period!
The sweet spot of our Cellars are the fine, red wines of the famed Napa Valley of California. These are accompanied by a smaller compliment of holdings from Italy, France, and Chile. There are lots of wonderful wines from around the world, but we can’t do it all, so we adhere to this focus. Napa reds because we love them; Italian because of my wife’s heritage; French because every cellar needs some French wines in it; and Chilean as this country holds a special place in my life from a time long ago.
You should know we do not have an unlimited wallet so we have made the conscious decision to spend our available dollars on wine rather than fancy glasses, multiple decanters, and expensive racking.
Roughly 75% of our holdings are chosen to be Cellar Dwellers with the remaining 25% dedicated to a briefer lifespan as our daily drinkers. Not that we don’t break into our special Cellar Dwellers for an occasional uncorking, but when we do, you know it will be for a serious celebration and solid merriment with family and special friends.
Oh, the other thing you will notice is we tend to stray towards reds in our cellars. Not that there’s anything wrong with white wines, it is just that we love reds. If we are drinking something white, it will probably have bubbles in it. Unscientifically I believe the roots of this preference grew from two places. First I drank way too many truly horrid ‘white’ wines in my youth. If you’re my age you recall the names — MD 20/20, Ripple, Boone’s Farm, Thunderbird, and others. Second it was some amazing red wines, which brought me back to appreciating wine after a long hiatus.
So welcome to the DP Wine Cellar! We believe you’ll enjoy coming with us behind our cellar door periodically and will have fun and learn something during your visits!
Don’t forget you can also check in with us on Instagram and Facebook.
Now if you’ll please excuse me I have to pack for a few days in Napa.
Cheers!
Scott