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Summer Sale!

July 29th, 2010 by Erica

Our summer sale is in full force and goes all the way through August 28th! Many items perfect for your summer barbeques and parties are on sale: beer, wine, and spirits. Another bonus for those of you that are club members is double points. Come stock up!

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Heavy Table and Matt Fisher on IPAs

June 4th, 2010 by Erica

Hot summer afternoons are the perfect times to enjoy a refreshing IPA. Our own Matt Fisher talks with heavy table about the history of the brew and its wonderful attributes and the interesting varieties seen today. Check out what he has to say!

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Best of City Pages:Wine Shop & Cheese Shop!

April 21st, 2010 by Erica

We have received the  very prestigious awards of Minneapolis’s Best Cheese Shop and Best Wine Shop! Check out the articles as well as the many other wonderful people, places, and businesses in the Twin Cities that have received Best Of awards.

Cheese Shop: http://www.citypages.com/bestof/2010/award/best-cheese-shop-1378800/

Wine Shop:  http://www.citypages.com/bestof/2010/award/best-wine-shop-1378810/

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France 44 IN THE NEWS AGAIN!

March 5th, 2010 by Rick

Our resident Cheesemongers, Benjamin and Song, are featured in the food blog SimpleGoodandTasty.com, in a discussion of local food versus imported delights from the other side of the planet. So, is it OK for the devoted locovore to indulge in a Carles Roquefort or a Pata Negra Spanish ham? Check out the blog and join the conversation!

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France 44 IN THE NEWS – SCOTCH

March 5th, 2010 by Rick

Our resident beer guy, Matt Fisher, also likes him a wee bit of nippy sweetie from time to time. Thankfully, his earnest tippling has prepared him well to opine about delicious Scotches. Also convenient is the local foodie-blog’s interest in Scotch. So that stars aligned (and some sponsorship agreements later), we have this in-depth article on two great Scotches stocked on our neat and clean wooden shelves. Why not check it out?

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SURVIVE WINTER: TAKE A WINE CLASS

February 20th, 2010 by Rick

By all accounts, this winter has been brutal. You would be forgiven if you’re feeling a little stir-crazy.

The good news is that we have lots of wine, a well-heated building, and a fully-plowed parking lot! All we need is a few good souls to venture out into the last throes of the Minnesota winter to enjoy one or more of our awesome (and award-winning) wine classes.

Take a look at our calendar and see if anything tickles your fancy. Also remember that our cheese shop can offer you a snack pack, custom matched to the wines being sampled in the class!

So what are you waiting for? Click here to view our calendar! At only $30 per class, our program is the best deal in the Twin Cities.

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JUST IN! – A FRESH CROP OF CHEESE

February 20th, 2010 by Rick

In a sure sign of spring, we just received a big shipment of cheese (wonderful cheese!) from around the country and around the world. Indeed, our cheese cases are practically bursting at the seams with beautiful blues, awesome alpines, great goudas, and wonderful washed-rinds!

You owe it to yourself to stop by and ask for a sample of anything that strikes your fancy. We love to have you try things, because the stress of selling you something you won’t like is just too much for us to bear!

But please, whatever you do, DON’T ASK FOR A SKIM-MILK CHEESE!!! It might cause our cheesemonger’s head to explode!

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Attention Beer Geeks:

February 8th, 2010 by Erica

We have doubled the size of our walk in beer cooler to 1200 ft2 ! This may mean more aimless wandering and potential hypothermia. Not to fear a staff member is always present to help you navigate your way through the towers of delectable brews. This also means more room for MORE beer! Keep your eye out for new additions to our selection.  If this is all too overwhelming for you, Matt, our beer expert, is teaching an introductory beer  class March 9th. Come learn the fundamentals of brewing while enjoying some new suds.

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Ames Farm and their Busy Bees

January 12th, 2010 by Rick

BeeThe current bout of summer-like weather has us thinking about honeybees, flowers, songbirds, and (of course) honey! When we think of these things, our minds naturally drift toward the folks at Ames Farm and their horde of busy bees.

Liesa Helfen from Ames Farm Single Source Honey will be here to sample
out their various sweet nectars. Ames honey is collected over one specific time period, from one unique geographic location and from one single hive. They have some 300 hives in 18 different locations! All Ames single-source honey is raw and unfiltered, which means it has not been exposed to any heat outside of the hive and has not been blended or heavily processed.

If you’ve never experienced honey the way the bees do, then you’re missing out on one of the planet’s last unspoiled treats. Come on by our Minneapolis location on Saturday, January 30th from 2pm to 5pm. As always, the tasting is free of charge and open to the public. You’ll be able to taste the difference single-sourcing makes for honey. Caveat: We will not have any of the honey in the bear-shaped bottle, so if you want to compare, you’ll have to bring your own!

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Cheese Shop Wins Award

January 5th, 2010 by Rick

Kathie Jenkins of the St. Paul Pioneer Press honored us by her selection of our Fennel Salami Sandwich as one of the “10 Best Dishes of 2009″. Here is a link to the article. Thanks, for the shout-out, Kathie!

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New Year's Resolution for 2010

January 5th, 2010 by Rick

NewYearIn the spirit of the season, we’ve resolved to further expand our selection of products in the coming year. And unlike most New Year resolutions, we won’t abandon it two weeks into the year! Here are a few things we plan on doing this year:

1. Further expand our beer selection. We already carry over 1300 different beers, but still we hear that someone else has “more”. Huh? Well, fine. We’re channeling our “inner Jan” and working even harder to impress the beer intelligentsia out there. Be on the lookout for changes to our beer cooler to accommodate the wider selection.

2. Improve the flow of our check-out lanes. Most of the time, we have no problem handling our customers at check-out time. But when it’s REALLY busy, the lines can get long. Now, we know that this is pretty standard in retail. Nevertheless, we know how much WE hate standing in long lines, so we’re going to do something about it. Look for some changes in the arrangement of our check-out lanes which will (hopefully) make them more efficient.

3. Raise the profile of organic and sustainable items in our store. Our selection of organic and sustainable products will beat anybody else’s in town. Of this I have no doubt. The problem is that our tags do not always “pop” on the shelf or our staff do not always know all the items that fit in this category. So, we’ll work even harder to make our organic and sustainable items easier to locate.

Like all resolutions, these will take some time to get implemented. However, we are confident that we’ll get them done over the next several weeks. Happy 2010!

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Yes! We have no Rogue chocolate!

December 2nd, 2009 by Rick

ColinIt seems that Colin’s segment on KARE 11 literally sucked ever remaining bar of his chocolate from store shelves just before Christmas.

Good for him! It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Unfortunately, this means that he’s been spending his holidays slaving away with the Oompa Loompas in the chocolate factory instead of doing whatever else Colin might liked to have done during the last couple weeks.

We’ll be sure to let you know when we get our order of fresh, delicious, single-source Rogue chocolates. Until then, keep up with those resolutions to cut down on chocolate and bulk up on rice cakes!

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Le Nouveau Est Arrive!

November 19th, 2009 by Rick

BN2009It’s that time of the year again. Santa’s getting ready to take his chances with a long line of wiggly hopefuls. The big box retailers have all their sound systems cranked up with yuletide ditties. And the French happily send out their peculiar variety of “instant wine.” All we need now is an early snow and some decked-out sleighs!

Just like the swallows returning to Capestrano, the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau is a sure sign of the changing seasons.

Like it or not, the holidays are officially in full swing. The French government said so.

The Nouveau selections this year include the following producers: Bouchard, Chatelus, Drouhin,  Georges Duboeuf, Matray, and Mommessin. In addition the Alexander Valley Vineyards New Gewurztraminer from California joins the annual Nouveau reunion.

If you want some, you better hurry up and get it, because (fingers crossed… this is retail after all!) it won’t last long.

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Jefferson Presidential Select Bourbon

November 13th, 2009 by admin

Just arived and we have limited quanities! This bourbon is bold with roasted toasty note, vanilla, and spice.  Aged 17 years allows this bourbon to have deep complexity, with raisin, sherry, and chocolate notes on the finish. This is not shy bourbon with its 94 proof. You will fine it to be soft and elegant with good balance. At $100 a bottle you will see why it superior. Limited quantities are available. Stop in and have one of our friendly staff build a custom bourbon basket for the holidays.

Cheers,
- Jeff

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Welcome Heavy Table Readers!

November 11th, 2009 by Rick

heavyTableWelcome to France 44′s website! We’re glad you came. You can check back here often to see what new items are in store. Matt (“the beer guy”) featured in the Heavy Table article, is practically as religious about posting new arrivals here as he is about getting them on the shelf. So if you want to stay up on what’s new in beer, check back often (or better yet, RSS us).

Another thing you can do is to follow us on Twitter. You can find the link near the top of our navigation panel on the left-hand side.

Finally, you can always check out our free tasting schedule, posted to the right of this column. We have free tastings of beer on Fridays and of wine on Fridays and Saturdays. You certainly can’t beat the price!

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Mad River brewing Co. and limited seasonals

November 10th, 2009 by admin

mad rivervan tweeNew to the shelves at France 44 this week we have the Mad River Brewing Company.  This highly touted brewery sent us their Jamaican Red Ale, Extra Pale Ale, Double India Pale Ale, Scotch Porter and the John Barleycorn Barleywine.

As for the new limited seasonals we recieved Moylans Winter Lager, St. Bernardus Christmas Ale, Corsendonk Christmas Ale and finally in a brewmaster’s colaboration between John Mallet of Bell’s Brewery in Michigan and Dirk Naudts of the De Proef Brouwerij in Belgium we have the Van Twee, a dark Belgian ale brewed with cherry juice.

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More new beers. Limited release.

November 4th, 2009 by admin

First off  Founder’s has released their Backwoods Bastard,  a bourbon barrel aged scotch ale, as well as their dry hopped Pale Ale.

Next in is the Killer Penguin from Boulder brewing company.  A very limited barleywine, only five cases of this stuff came into the state.

For all of you who have been asking, the Bells Christmas Ale is finally here!

foundersbells xmaskiller p

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New Beers come to Minnesota!

October 29th, 2009 by admin

I’m excited to announce that we have three breweries making their debut in our store this week. Pretty Things Beer and Ale project, the Hoppy Brewing Co. and Geary’s Brewing Co.

pretty thingsFrom Pretty Things we received the Baby Tree Quad, brewed with dried plums; the Jack D’OR which is a Farmhouse style and finally the Saint Botolph’s Town rustic brown ale.

hoppyFrom the Hoppy brewing Co. came Liquid Sunshine Blonde, the Hoppy Face Amber ale, the Stony Face Red Ale and the Total Eclipse Black Ale.

gearysFinally we have Geary’s Brewing Company. They dropped in with their London Porter, Wee Heavy Scotch Ale, Imperial IPA, Pale Ale and the Hampshire Ale.

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Bells Seasonals are in!

October 28th, 2009 by admin

images  For all you stout fans out there, the Bell’s seasonal beers are here! The Java Stout, Double Cream Stout, Cherry Stout and their new Rye Stout all arrived today along with the 3rd Coast Old Ale barleywine.

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Fall Sale from October 29 through November 14

October 27th, 2009 by Rick

Fall Sale LogoPrepare to save! It’s time for our fantastic fall wine sale. You’ve had a chance to see the rest, now come and shop the best.

Just like our Spring sale, I’ve done the math and proven once again that our loyal customers save MORE by shopping our sale than any others.

Check out this analysis (click here).

As you can see, if you shop the France 44 wine sale, you could save

  • 5.7% over Surdyks,
  • 2.4% over Haskell’s, and
  • 5.3% over South Lyndale

on the same basket of items.

So what are you waiting for? Stop by and check out our wine sale, which begins on Thursday, October 29th and runs through Saturday, November 14th.

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Tweeting for Deals

October 22nd, 2009 by Rick

FollowMe200Now is the time for all good shoppers to come to the aid of their bank accounts!

We’re now totally running with the cool cats out there. We are officially on Twitter.

So what? I’m glad you asked! If you follow us (click here) then you’ll be the FIRST to know about hot new arrivals and take advantage of special deals.

It’s a brave new world out there. Welcome.

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Shazam! Our new and improved website.

October 6th, 2009 by Rick

ShazamIn case you took a double-take, yes, this is a new website. Sure, it looks a lot like our old one, but “underneath the hood” it’s a whole different engine. We’re all Web 2.0 now, with blog posts, online community commentary, Facebook friending, and video blogs.

Come on in, look around and kick the tires a bit. And don’t be a stranger. We hope to publish quite frequently and would love to be talking to someone but ourselves!

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City Pages Recognizes the Cheesemongers Tweets

September 28th, 2009 by admin

France 44′s Tweets are usually droolingly descriptive, often humorous, and totally informative. Benjamin Roberts, the man behind the Edina cheese shop and the new St. Paul Cheese Shop, also offers some great sales sometimes via Twitter.

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Message in a Bottle: Chateau Rozier

September 28th, 2009 by admin

Introduction to one of France 44′s favorite Grand Cru Bordeaux producers. Chateau Rozier is still one the Right Bank’s best values, possessing great finesse, polish and longevity. This video offers a snapshot of the region, pairing suggestions and special pricing for the wine through the 2009 holiday season.

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