I'd heard about a new wine store with an interesting name, so I headed to Chapel Hill to check it out.

Paula, I have to say I love your shop.

It is so pretty in here and I am intrigued by the name of your store.

Rocks + Acid.

- Rocks and Acid.

- What's behind the name?

So Rocks + Acid are the two most important things about wine for me, and the name Rocks + Acid just popped in my head, and I was like, "Oh, that will promote a lot of conversation, a lot of questions.

- It certainly will, it certainly will, Rocks + Acid.

- Yep, and it's like I always tell people I don't sell vinyl and I don't sell illegal things in the shop, but it refers to terroir, essentially, the rocks part of it refers to a terroir, which signifies the type of soil that the vines are grown which gives off a lot of the nutrients as well as a very unique characteristic to the grapes.

Also the altitude, the climate, the exposition of the vineyards, and most importantly for me, it's the traditional mill house that a lot of winemakers imbue on how they will make the finished product.

So that's a terroir part of it.

And then the acid is essentially the acid backbone of wines.

For us, it's more important than the alcohol levels, and so you want that acid, so that you keep on drinking the wine, it's refreshing.

So a really good example of a wine that has rocks and acid in it is this wine.

This one is the Celliers de Sion.

This one is made from the grape called Jacquère.

I like to say this with this wine to people who are like, "What is Jacquère?"

I was like, just taste it.

I know this is going to sound really weird.

It tastes like melted snow, which essentially is water, but you put it in the Alps, and it's like it brings you to that very pure flavor profile.

- It's very bright.

- Uh-huh, very bright.

- And clean.

- The acid is that, that's what's making it really bright and very zesty.

And then it finishes off with this really nice kind of citrusy tone to it.

This is the kind of wine that I would love to drink at the beginning of a meal, something with oysters, something with a green salad.

This next wine that I'm pouring for you is coming from Italy, so you can see it is very orange.

This is the Borgo Savaian, it is the Aransat, it's a local dialect for the word, orange.

It is also made from sauvignon blanc and pinot gris.

- [Deborah] Paula told me her interest in cooking was spurred by watching the Food Network while growing up in the Philippines, but her parents wanted her to be a doctor.

- I really wanted to be in food for, even when I was younger, but my dad was like, "No, no, no, no, no you have to get a real degree."

[both laughing] - I've heard that before.

- Uh-huh, yeah.

And so I was like, what would be something that I can do that had the least credits of math and sciences?

Okay, let's do Communications Marketing PR, got my degree, can I go, you know, can I go now?

- [Deborah] After graduating, she applied to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.

- My professor was like, you have an aptitude for wine.

Do you wanna pursue this?

I never really thought about it as a profession.

I never thought that sommeliers were a thing.

I transferred, and did more wine credits, and then after graduation, I ended up here in North Carolina, and worked for Barrington Village.

So Barrington has this massive wine list, and it was almost like a bible.

And I just love learning about the different producers, the different grapes, and different regions.

At a certain point, it wasn't just about what's in the bottle, it became where is it from, what's the history, how did this come about, what are the wine making techniques that people used to make this final wines?

- I really love the mission and your philosophy behind selecting the wines, why you select these wines, what are buyers gonna see on the shelves here that's really unique?

- [Paula] All of the wines here are made by families.

They are very much small production in terms of there's no company or corporation that's dictating the flavor profile, or how many cases that they need to produce.

It's basically what the vintage gives these families to make every year, they're either organic, biodynamic, natural, or at least sustainably-produced.

So you won't see crazy additives of these wines.

- In addition to wines, Paula stocks wonderful cheeses, olives, meats, even caviar, all carefully curated to accompany a nice bottle of wine.

And your entire setup here is very engaging, and you like to have that interaction.

- Oh yes.

- With your buyers, right?

- Oh yes, I do love to talk to every single person that comes into the shop, and I understand that some people can get very intimidated about wine, because I mean, honestly, like the label sometimes it tells you a lot and sometimes it doesn't tell you anything.

- Anything [laughs].

- And even if it tells you a lot, what does it mean?

- I love that someone who's interested in that doesn't have to necessarily do all of the research themselves.

- I've done it for them.

- You've done it for them.

- Yes [laughs].

- Cheers.

[glasses clanking] Rocks + Acid Wine Shop is at 712 Market Street in Southern Village just outside Chapel Hill.

They're open Wednesday through Sunday, and for more information you can give them a call at [919] 545-1392 or go online to rocksandacidwineshop.com.