"Rich," "dark," "full-bodied," or "acidic" are just a few of the words thrown around the table to describe how wine tastes… or coffee… or wine-infused coffee.Wait, wine-infused coffee? Obviously, someone had to come along and merge two very complex worlds that were totally fine on their own, as well as create a beverage that can stain teeth like no other.In a Frankensteinian experiment that combines our love of getting drunk off of old grapes with our need to consume stimulants every morning, Napa Valley's own Molinari Private Reserve (MPR), has found a way to make a wine-infused coffee that is equal parts coffee, wine, and confusion.And it's not just the flavor profiles of wine and coffee that have been fused together here. In an impressive combination of coffee and wine buzzwords, MPR describes their process as follows: "This full-bodied coffee relaxes in a beautiful wine, absorbing the wine's nose and history, then the coffee is carefully dried and hand-roasted in small batches."This "secret art form" took two-and-a-half years to perfect, and a lot of trial and error. "Each regular and decaf blend is made from carefully selected coffee beans that are rehydrated to a specific liquid percentage using a special house made red—created exclusively for Molinari by local Napa wineries—and then dried and roasted."The result, sadly, contains no alcohol but can be prepared like another other coffee bean: as espresso, latte, cold, black, or even as a skin rub. So how do coffee, wine, and milk taste together? Apparently, it's not as gross as it sounds."The addition of milk makes the wine more pronounced, while the French Press emphasizes the blueberry essence. And, much like wine, the cooler MPR gets, the more the coffee breathes and opens."But until we try a bag, we're going to stick to drinking wine at night and separately nursing the hangover with black coffee in the morning. Maybe they can throw some cigarettes in there to really capture the full experience.
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