Aspiring Wine and Cheese Connoisseur

2005 Foreau Vouvray Moelleux

2011-09-11T20:35:00.000-05:00

So... Stephen and I decided to open a wine tonight and thought we'd clear out one of the older ones we have had for awhile. So we looked and this 2005 french vouvray looked delicious and seemed like it was getting too old for a white. We opened it and loved it! Decided to look it up online and HOLY COW this was an expensive wine! Of course we didn't even notice the sticker on the bottle that said it was 64.99, so here we are drinking probably one of the top 5 most expensive wines we own for no reason. We got it so long ago we didn't even remember. *sigh*

Oh well. Anyway, now that we are drinking it, the wine really is delicious. As I said, we looked it up online and it got 95 and 96 points from wine spectator and wine advocate. It is a sweet white wine with peach and honey notes and a heavier texture than I would expect. It's creamy and very fruit forward. It is a full alcohol wine at 13.3%, but very, very soft and not at all alcoholic tasting.

This is an overall fantastic wine, and although I do not blog often, I had to get on here right away and do this nice wine some justice.

Pictrues to come.

Port Slush

2011-07-22T10:44:00.016-05:00

Stephen and I wanted to try something new, and he had this idea to blend wine with ice to make a slush. It was a good idea, but since wine is so low alcohol, our blended drink would probably need some kind of vodka or other mixer to make it a little stronger. Ugh, not a big fan of vodka. So then we had a brilliant idea - let's use port! Port is about 17 - 20% alcohol, so it's perfect! We went to Specs and asked for the cheapest port that was still tasty, and left with a bottle of $5.99 port... yep... that cheap. This is obviously not the $30/bottle kind of port you sip and savor. Then, we poured in half the bottle with 1/2 a bag of mixed berries, a squeeze of lime, a ton of ice and viola! Instant port slush!

I rate this drink an A! It's cheap, very tasty, and I feel like it might be healthier than other mixed drinks you could drink filled with tons of sugar. It tastes very fruity and pretty much like a fruit smoothie. The huge glasses we made were about 2 drinks worth of alcohol. I recommend trying this at home!

Birthday Wine

2011-07-16T20:41:00.000-05:00

The day before my birthday, I had some free time so I went to go do something that I love - shop for random wines. I figured it was an early birthday present to myself. I really like just browsing and looking at all the wines, and then buying a completely random one. I went to the Costco liquor store because believe it or not, they have a really good selection of interesting wines. It was fun to look around, and I ended up getting a Vinum petit syrah, which is a wine I'm interested in learning more about.

I haven't had too many of them before, and they are usually used just in small quantities to balance out other wines - its less common to see a bottle of 100% petit syrah.

Another reason I got it was the description: "It is a rich, pomegranate scented monster of a wine which packs a punch yet finishes soft, with concentrated plum, blueberry and supple tannins. The finish is generous and fires on all cylinders, fruit, color, concentration and silky oak tannins at the end."

The wine was pretty good, but by no means amazing. Other wines I am interested in trying 100% wines of are cabernet franc, and ESPECIALLY petit verdot. I don't think I've ever seen a 100% petit verdot, is it just better as a mixing grape in small quantities?

Ok so I got one more wine too because it was only... wait for it... $3.33. Yes, I had to try it and see how it was. I actually asked someone who worked there what the deal was with that wine and she said it was not bad and many people are come back looking for it again.

So there's really nothing to lose in trying it... it might be ok and if not I'm only out $3! Actually I have been interested in trying super cheap wines lately, so will make a post about that shortly. How can they even PRODUCE wine for that cheaply? I mean, doesn't the bottle and label and other packaging total at least a dollar or two? I'm curious!

Actual Wedding Anniversary

2011-07-14T20:37:00.000-05:00

So Stephen and I technically have two anniversaries - one when we signed the papers and became officially married, and one when we had our big wedding/reception. We already celebrated the paper signing in June with our trip to Mikado, and now we are celebrating our "big" wedding anniversary! We had a groupon for Hudsons on the Bend, which is a pretty nice place, so decided to go there.

Our coupon was for two 3 course tasting menus, and there were 2 options for each course, so we decided to just get the exact opposite of each other so we could try all 6 dishes. Here were our appetizers:

a mixed salad with pecan crusted goat cheese and blueberry vinaigrette

and duck breast wrapped in bacon in a dipping sauce.

The salad was awesome! SO delicious! That ball of crusted goat cheese was to die for. Then it was time for the main course.

trout with mango jalapeno aioli with ancho paint (???)

and prime tenderloin in a jalapeno hollandaise

The trout was absolutely delicious, and while the beef was also good, the portion size was very small! On to the desserts...

caramel pecan pie dipped in belgium chocolate,

and peach cobbler.

I am usually a huge dessert fanatic, but neither of these really were that amazing to me. I got the chocolate thing, and just read pecan and chocolate but didn't realize it was a PECAN PIE dipped in chocolate. Those aren't my favorite, and it was very very rich. The peach cobbler was pretty good, but also not my favorite.

Then we came back and opened a bottle of wine, since we didn't get any at the restaurant. Since we used to be members of the Chisholm Trail wine club and had quite a few different bottles, we decided to open one of those.

This is the 2006 Diablo. It is 70% syrah and 30% lenoir. This wine was pretty good, but not great. I looked online since I forgot how much we paid for it, and for wine club members it is $18. It tasted a tad on the sour side to us - not enough to think it was corked, but just a little weird tasting. It was good overall but it wasn't too interesting nor did it have any defining characteristics. I'm not sure I would buy it again for $18, but I think we actually had 2 bottles of this somehow lol, so I will get to try it again some other time. Anyway, the night was fun, and we played a new game we had, called Quirkle - very fun and just the right amount of thinking for a night like this.

J. Rickard Wine Party

2011-07-09T15:49:00.000-05:00

My friend Kris graciously decided to have a bunch of his friends over for a little wine tasting of some of his favorite wines, all from J. Rickard winery in California. He had amassed quite a collection, and we got to try several vintages of the same wines to see how they compared. It was very interesting, and he had some great wines to share!

Of course there were lots of delicious snacks also - here is a close up of the cheeses!

My favorites were the goat gouda on the top rights, and the herby goat cheese on the lower left. A surprisingly good cheese was the goat blue in the middle on the bottom. It was DELICIOUS on crackers and with the wine... oh my goodness I could eat that all day. I'm sure you can tell that I love goat cheese.

On to the wine. The first trio we tried was J. Rickard's 2008, 2007, and 2006 old vine zinfandels (in that order). The 2006 was definitely my favorite (B+) and I said it was very soft and fruity, unlike the other 2. The 2008 (B-) tasted too alcoholic and the 2007 (C+) was very harsh as well. Opinions varied, as they always do, and it seemed like everyone had a different favorite. Stephen thought the 2007 was the best and said it was "tasty, spicy, and challenging", and Kris liked both the 2006 and the 2008 better than the 2007.

Then, we moved on to his 2008, 2007, and 2006 Meritage wines, which are a blend of the 5 bordeaux grapes (cabernet sauv, merlot, cab franc, petit verdot, and malbec). I liked all of these better than the zinfandels, I guess zins are not really my thing? I gave the 2008 meritage a B+, the 2007 a C- (maybe 2007 was not a good year for my tastebuds!) and the 2006 got an A. I do want to say that if I had tasted any of these 6 wines on their own, I probably would have thought they were all good and worth drinking.

Overall, I learned that the older wines were smoother, fruitier, and easier to drink. The younger ones were a little too tannic and alcoholic for my taste, but I bet in a few years they would be better. Something about the 2007 wines was strange to me, maybe the barrel they were aged in, or the weather, who knows.

To top off the night, Kris brought out his Los Ninos Perdidos Port, which was really delicious. I gave the port an A, and I think it was loved by everyone who had some. Also, a fun moment of the night was at the very end when Kris shared some spread that looks like peanut butter but tastes like COOKIES! It was so incredibly yummy!

The night was a lot of fun!

Wine Ice Cream?

2011-07-07T17:21:00.000-05:00

I found this article from the Huffington Post about wine ice creams that you can buy and also make!

Wine Ice Cream

What a wonderful idea! :o

Electra Orange Muscat

2011-07-02T14:16:00.000-05:00

I gave this wine to my mom for Christmas, and since I went to visit my family yesterday, we decided to open it. It is a very light wine - only 4% alcohol, and a small half size bottle. We thought the wine tasted like pear and it was very sweet and delicious. Because it was so low alcohol, it was very drinkable and I did not even feel any buzz or other effect. It was more like a yummy fruit drink!

Specs Wine Tasting

2011-06-30T15:59:00.000-05:00

Last night was Spec's Wine Wednesday and I must say it was not their best. The theme seemed to be wines around the world, since only 2 of the 20 wines were from the U.S (8 were from Italy alone!). Most of them were very dry and had all sorts of weird smells and tastes. We had a wine from Israel that smelled like a certain grass, a wine that smells like corn on the cob or ketchup depending on who you asked, a wine that tasted like you were drinking a glass of Big Red soda and also smelled like cheese, and one that tasted like green pepper. Overall, it was certainly an INTERESTING night. Unfortunately, a full 12/20 wines got x's from me. :( The only wine I ended up liking enough to give a check to was the Marchesi Incisa Moscato d'Asti from Italy.

Oh well, I ended up buying a cheese at least!

Anniversary Sushi

2011-06-29T16:43:00.000-05:00

For our 1 yr anniversary, Stephen and I decided to go out for some sushi! Sushi is probably our favorite food, and we had a gift certificate to use and the night off so we headed out to Mikado.

We were staying for a while, so we decided to get some drinks out, which is something we usually don't do at restaurants. But, it was a special night and interesting drinks so we went ahead. Stephen got a small sake (which was terrible to me) and I tried a plum wine, which was great! It was very sweet - a little too sweet, like a dessert wine, but it was a very low alcohol wine. Then, our food came!

I love seaweed salad so much!

The sushi was REALLY great and it was hard to pick our favorites. I believe we got an eel roll, california roll, soft shell crab, and spicy tuna - all of which were amazing. To go along with our sushi, we decided to each order a flight of different flavored cold sakes. Each flight had about 2 ounces of 3 different sakes.

My sakes were pear, apple, and lychee flavored. The apple was by far the best, and the lychee tasted really strange. Pear flavored things are never really my thing, but they all were very interesting to try.

I'm not sure how to really tell Stephen's sakes apart, but there they are! It's cool to see how different sakes can taste. Here they are in case anyone is interested...

Flat Creek Winery

2011-06-29T16:14:00.000-05:00

One thing from the past few months that I have to write about is our trip to Flat Creek Winery. We went on May 29th to celebrate Stephen and his mom's birthdays. I always love visiting wineries because they are always so beautiful and the people there are usually so knowledgeable about the wines they make there and it's fun to talk to them.

We shared a tasting of 9 wines, and most of them were very good. Our favorites were the syrah and their meritage, but the super texan was also a big favorite. At the tasting room, the parties sit at small tables and are served by a server. Our server was very nice, but she seemed a little too busy to really chat with us and explain the wines fully. It was still fun though.

After our wine tasting, we decided to have lunch at the small restaurant they have on the property. The food there was really good, and we split a bottle of wine with our meal - our favorite from the tasting - the meritage.

The view was very pretty, and overall it was a really fun and relaxing afternoon.

Posting again!

2011-06-19T18:50:00.001-05:00

Ugh, it has been SO long since I posted, and I am going to try and catch up and keep up with my blog now. The last few months have been so busy with the end of school and the start of summer that I just haven't been thinking about it too much. However, that does NOT mean that I have stopped drinking wine. From now on, I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping up!

Wrongo Dongo

2011-04-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

Stephen went out of town for about a week, so I decided to open a bottle just for me while he was gone. When I looked though our collection though, I couldn't find one that I thought he wouldn't care about missing, so I just decided to stop by Specs and get my own thing. I kind of miss buying random wines, since most of the ones we end up getting are ones that we have tasted before either at Specs or at a winery. I had planned on buying a completely random wine, but as I was browsing, I came across this Wrongo Dongo. I have had this wine before a couple years ago and remembered that it was a pretty decent wine at the shocking price of only $6.

I drank this wine over a few nights, and I must say I was not too impressed. It was very harsh and alcoholic when I first opened it, but did soften up a little later on. Still, it was not very good. :( It wasn't terrible, and if I had to buy a wine again for only $6 I would consider it over some of the other $6 wines I had, but overall it is probably better as a once every few years thing.

Campbell's Rutherglen Muscat

2011-04-14T11:27:00.000-05:00

Ok, so that 1994 corked wine was absolutely disgusting. Since that bottle was a bust, we treated ourselves to a delicious dessert wine to wash the taste out. This was a 1/2 sized bottle of honey-like muscat. It retails for about $17, but we got it during a Grapevine closing for about $11 I think. This wine was intense! It is very sweet with brown sugar, honey, and raisin flavors. It feels thick and syrupy in your mouth. Surprisingly, it is 17% alcohol, but very drinkable! The sweetness overpowers the alcohol. I think a half size bottle is plenty for this wine, because it still turned out to be 2 small glasses for each of us. Overall, I think this wine was delicious but a little too sweet and syrupy for me.

1994 Chateau Musar

2011-04-14T11:13:00.000-05:00

Back in December, our family went to a Christmas Party with some people from Madison's school and had a white elephant gift exchange there. We spotted a few bottles of wine, but the most interesting one was a red wine from Lebanon! I don't think I have ever tried a wine from there, and even though it was from 1994, we snagged it. Well, a few weeks ago we opened a bottle of wine from 1994 and it was terrible! So, we thought we better go ahead and try this one to see what it was like.

Here is what we saw when we took off the foil...

Uh oh... bad news! We had to try it anyway though, and so we poured tastes. The smell was very strong, like raisins. I took a small sip and held it in my mouth for a few seconds. So far it tasted a little weird and I contemplated spitting it out, but figured I should get the full effect, so I swallowed it. NASTINESS! I cannot describe in words how disgusting that liquid was, only that it had obviously turned to vinegar. OH. MY. GOODNESS. In good news though, I have finally tasted my first corked wine, and WOW what an experience. Needless to say, we poured the rest of the bottle down the drain.

Moscato and Peach Liquer

2011-04-09T21:09:00.000-05:00

We all went to visit my parents this weekend. My mom has apparently gotten adventurous with her wine drinking and got some peach liqueur to mix with moscato! The moscato was Rocca Cerrina, which is a VERY light (5%) slightly sparking wine. The peach liqueur she had was amazingly delicious, very sweet and a bit syrupy.

I poured about an ounce of the peach liqueur in each of our glasses...

... and then I filled the rest of the glasses with the moscato.

This combination turned out to be delicious! Even with the 18% liqueur, this little drink only has about 1/2 the alcohol of a regular strength drink. To be honest, I could barely taste the peach flavor until I made myself a second glass and added just a splash more. I might actually have to get a bottle of that stuff and experiment to see what else it is good in!

Woodrose Wicked Red

2011-04-05T11:10:00.000-05:00

Stephen and I bought this wine a few years ago when we visited Woodrose Winery for the first time. It was a special wine that is normally only available to wine club members, but for some reason we had special attention from one of the owners.

I had this wine with a dinner of steelhead trout, a broccoli and chicken dish, and some peas. It was DELICIOUS! The wine was amazing from the very first sip, which usually doesn’t happen. It is a blend of about 2/3 merlot and 1/3 cabernet. The interesting thing about this wine is that it is only 11.8% alcohol, which is very unusual for a bold red. Most reds are 13 – almost 15% and it shows. This wine is smooth, incredibly tasty and not at all harsh or alcoholic. I think this wine was around $25 and it is well worth it. I would definitely buy this again, although I’m not sure if I could find it anywhere!

1994 Kruger Rumpf Riesling

2011-03-25T20:58:00.000-05:00

Yes, you read that right - this wine is from 1994! Stephen picked this wine up at the Grapevine sale a few years ago (wow, time flies...). I think he couldn't tell if it would be bad, because it's 15 years old, or maybe that it would be delicious because it has been aging. I guess we have been hesitant to open it, not knowing what to expect, but it was finally time. An interesting thing appeared when we tore open the foil on top...

I don't know if you can see the cork that well, but there was some definite funk or gunk going on! Gross! We opened the wine up anway and tried it and it was not terrible as I expected. But, it was not really good. It tasted pretty flat, a bit sour (although not vinegary), and just overall unappealing. I was a little concerned that the wine had gone bad and would make me sick, although I'm not sure if that actually happens. In the end, we tried to drink it but ended up throwing out most of the bottle :(. There is really no need to drink unappealing wine.

Fredericksburg Trip

2011-03-22T20:18:00.000-05:00

Stephen and I went to Fredericksburg last Friday to pick up our February wine club shipment from Becker Vineyards. Along the way we stopped at Texas Hills Winery, which is probably one of my favorites in Fredericksburg. They have a really great kick butt cab, orange moscato, and shiraz. They have a $5 tasting fee, which is refunded if you buy any bottle, so we usually end up doing that. This time we bought a half sized bottle of moscato that I thought my mom would like.

We also stopped at the Lost Creek tasting room, where we met a very nice guy who knew a ton about wine. He was the buyer for the tasting room and his job was to visit all the Texas wineries and decide which wines to sell there. How amazing is that! We ended up buying a somewhat expensive bottle of wine from Perissus, which I had never even heard of. It was SO good, more on that in a later post. Ok, already we have bought 2 bottles and we haven't even picked up the 3 we came for!

Whenever we go to Fredericksburg we try to find a new place to try, so this time we wanted to check out the William Chris winery, which is somewhat new. Apparently one of the guys from Woodrose Winery works there now and when we walked in, he actually recognized us! We ended up not staying and tasting their wines because they were 4 tastes for $10. Who do they think they are? Napa?

We also stopped at Pedernales Cellars, which is another place we had never been. This place was a little pricey too, at $12 for 9 wines. Honestly, there was nothing amazing there and we ended up just wasting our money :(.

We decided to save Becker for last, so we went into town to our favorite store that we call "the sample place". I don't even remember the name of this store but there are seriously HUNDREDS of samples of mustards, jellies, dips, salsas, hot sauces, etc. We filled up, checked out another wine store in town with samples, and then headed back out to Becker to pick up our wines.

(here is a picture of us in front of Becker 3 years ago! Wow!)

The cool thing about being in the Becker wine club is that you get to taste their wines for free when you come. Usually, there is a $10 fee for 6 tastes, so we end up getting $20 worth of tastings for free. We share each tasting also, so that way we each get to taste 12 wines. I was a little disappointed to learn that although wine club members save 20% on their wines, there is a $5 processing fee added on to each shipment. Also, we get 3 wines every 3 months, and I am usually charged between $50 - 70, which seems pretty high for only 3 wines. What they usually do is put on of their expensive ones in there and then a medium priced one and a cheaper one.

Here is what we got in our February shipment:

We got an albarino (meh), a barbera (yum!) and the dark one in the middle is a reserve merlot. I was a little disappointed again, because I probably would not have picked those wines and yet I had to pay for them. On our way back home Stephen and I discussed probably quitting the Becker wine club, since we have tried everything they have multiple times and are getting a bit tired of it. Also, we have just accumulated so many wines over the years that we want to only be adding wines that we truly love.

Printhe Shiraz Viognier

2011-03-21T21:56:00.000-05:00

This shiraz is from my Christmas wine pack. We have really not kept up with drinking one a month, but at this point we will just stretch it over 2 years instead of 1. I was very excited to try this wine, because Printhie makes a chardonnay which is one of the ONLY chardonnays I like. Just like the chardonnay, this shiraz has some viognier mixed in (5%). I liked this wine a lot, but I couldn't taste the viognier at all (no suprise, really). I immediately thought it had a creaminess to it, and an almost vanilla flavor. It was pretty sweet as well, and an overall pleasure to drink.

One interesting note though: this wine had a ton of sediment! Look at all this sediment when the bottle was finished...

Battle of the Blancs

2011-03-18T20:31:00.000-05:00

So I decided to do a side by side tasting and open 2 bottles of sauvignon blancs at the same time and compare them. We decided on 2 random bottles we had, a Kato New Zealand one and a Cameron Hughes wine from the Russian River Valley. Stephen poured us each a small glass of both and we tasted them. The interesting part is that I didn't know which glass was which. Here were my thoughts:

Wine #1:

pale yellow
bad smell
watery flavor, not very good on first taste
more of an alcoholic burn
more drinkable though, like a watered down lemonade
could possibly be confused with a pinot grigio
after drinking it a bit, I prefer this one since it's simpler

Wine #2:

dark, bright yellow
green pepper smell
very strong taste - maybe too strong with food
very distinct sauvignon blanc
smells like a pickle, vinegary

Wine #1 turned out to be the Cameron Hughes wine, and Wine # 2 was the Kato. I definitely liked #2 a lot better, which just goes to show that not all Cameron Hughes wines are terrific. I must say though, that we both tried these wine a day or two later and I thought the CH one was better than it was on the first day.

Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Riesling

2011-02-04T21:07:00.000-06:00

I'm not even sure if that is the official name of this wine, there are so many things on the label! We originally opened this wine to use a little bit in some cooking, but it turned out to be sweet and not dry like we thought. We didn't know that much about it, and just got it at the Grapevine sale a year or so ago. It turned out to be very yummy! It seems a bit heavy and sweet, which is not how I'm used to rieslings tasting. It has a very honey like flavor, and is very rich. It is only 9.5% alcohol and very drinkable. I believe this was a bit pricey although I have no idea this long after we bought it. When I looked it up online, the only place I found said it was $40 which means we prob bought it for $25 or so. Although it is pretty good, I definitely would not buy it for that again.

Cambiata Tannat

2011-01-30T21:21:00.000-06:00

My best friend in the whole world has moved back to Austin! I am beyond excited, and so I went over to his place to hang out. We are both big wine lovers so we decided to share a bottle. He showed me his collection and we decided on a wine I had never heard of before - a tannat. Apparently this wine is pretty hard to find, and only a few places carry it. He warned me that it would be intense and I almost wanted to wait and try it with food sometime, but we decided to forge ahead and try it. This wine was very good! I am writing this review after the fact, so unfortunately I don't remember specific flavors. However, I remember it being very bold and rich definitely a new type of wine I would like to try again!

Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc

2011-01-25T21:43:00.000-06:00

Now THIS is a wine. I have had this wine a few times before, once at McCormicks and Schmidt, and another at a wine bar. Perhaps even a third time at House Wine, I don't remember though. I finally bought Stephen a bottle for his birthday last May and we just got around to drinking it. To me, it is the perfect sauvignon blanc. Sauv blancs are tricky, because sometimes they taste like the infamous cat pee, or green peppers, or water, or occassionally a wonderful blend of citrus. This wine has wonderfully balanced fruit flavors and goes well either with food or completely on it's own. For $17, I will definitely be getting this wine again.

Texas Hills 2005 Syrah

2011-01-04T23:05:00.000-06:00

Stephen and I have had this wine for probably 3 years or so and decided we really needed to go ahead and drink it. Texas Hills is quickly becoming one of our favorite Texas wineries, since almost all of their stuff is so delicious.

My thoughts on this wine are that it is VERY good. I thought it was highly acidic, which I like, and has a bit of a tomatoey flavor. Almost a little V8 like, and I don't actually like V8 but I loved this wine. It was also a bit herby. Overall it was just so so good, and Im pretty sure they don't sell the 05 anymore, but I've tasted the more recent syrahs also and they are very good as well.

Cork Cage

2011-01-03T23:04:00.000-06:00

Here is a picture of my new cork cage! I was dropping in the cork from the almond sparkler on New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve Wines

2011-01-02T21:03:00.001-06:00

Stephen and I decided to keep it pretty low key this New Year's, so decided to just spend the evening with Maddie and family. We invited our parents over as well and while my parents were sick, Stephen's parents could make it over. We bought hats, glasses, and noisemakers and had snacks, wine, and played the new game I got Stephen for Christmas, Hedbanz. This game is FUN! It's basically kind of like 20 questions, but you are wearing a headband with a card on it and you are trying to guess what is on your card.

The night was really fun and while we played the game, we gave Stephen's parents a choice of a few wines. They chose one they actually have had before, the Becker Prairie Rotie. This wine is always a crowd pleaser and is very soft and not very tannic so fits well with people who don't usually drink wine. We celebrated the new year a little before midnight so Maddie wouldn't have to stay up so late, and toasted with an almond sparkler.

Everyone agreed the sparkler was great and better than real champagne! I always love almond sparklers, as they are sweet and super delicious.

The night was very fun!

Christmas wine

2010-12-25T20:44:00.000-06:00

Christmas was amazing this year, we were all very fortunate to receive so many wonderful presents! One of my favorites has been the new camera Stephen's parents gave us since they know I love to take pictures so much. My photos for the blog, scrapbook, and just in general will be so much better! :) Stephen and I had a ban on giving wine as a present this year since we have SO many bottles already, but I should have known he would give me one anyway lol.

It is a Cabo de Hornos from Chile and is a blend of cabernet, syrah, and malbec. It sounds very interesting and was a bit pricey so we will probably keep it in our new wine cooler for a little while! He also got me a cork cage which I will get a picture of shortly. It is like a wire house where you drop corks in through the chimney and then you can keep the corks for memories.

I had just seen my parents for Christmas Eve, but my brother was only coming into town on Christmas day, so they all stopped by for a short gift exchange and a little wine and a mini round of Apples to Apples. We were trying to think of a wine they might like but would be new to them and came up with an good one we have had for a little bit. It is a 2008 Flat Creek orange muscat and we all loved it! It is 11% alcohol but tastes extremely smooth. It's a tad sweet with a hint of orange but overall was just a very smooth easy drinking delicious wine. I actually don't think I like it as much as the Texas Hills orange muscat though, which is higher alcohol (14%) with a little more kick and balance to it. This one, like the Texas Hills one, is a little pricey though at $17 for a 2/3 sized bottle.

As I said before, we got many wonderful presents and had an excellent Christmas overall.

Christmas Eve wines

2010-12-24T20:20:00.000-06:00

We got together with Stephen's parents and my parents for some holiday fun on Christmas Eve and had a delicious array of foods and wines. My parents are not into red wine, so before they came Stephen and I opened a Becker claret we had brought, which is delicious. In my opinion, most if not all of the Becker wines are very solid choices and most are between $10 - 15 so a good value too.

My parents arrived and they had brought wine too, so we opened a Biltmore Century white wine, which unfortunately I forgot to snap a picture of. It's a wine I introduced my parents to that they now like. It's a blend of riesling, gewurztraminer, and muscat canelli and is a little higher alcohol than what they were used to (12%). It's very good.

We all ate some soup, salad, and sandwiches and munched on cookies and other treats as we played Apples to Apples which is probably my favorite game ever.

We also opened another wine near the end of the night which I had never had before but always thought looked interesting.

It is a Root: 1 Cabernet and I think Stephen's parents bought it because it had high reviews. It turned out to be very good as well! We ended up staying pretty late but the night was a lot of fun and a very good Christmas Eve. :)

Martini & Rossi Sparkling Wine

2010-11-21T12:59:00.000-06:00

For some reason I felt like opening a sparking wine and I've had this one for a little while. Stephen wanted to try a new way of opening sparklers called "kniving" I think. Basically you open the top of the bottle but leave the cork in. Then, you rub a knife up and down against the neck of the bottle really fast and its supposed to build up the carbonation. Finally, the cork should shoot out.

Well we tried it and it WORKED! The only thing is that the cork did not exactly shoot out, it shot off a piece of the bottle with it...

It was very fun. As for the actual wine, I liked it! It was somewhat sweet and very drinkable. I wanted to try it also because I've heard champagnes and other sparkling wines that something in them that amplifies the effects of the wine, making you feel slightly different.

I'm not sure I'd get this wine again just for fun, but if I needed a sparkling wine for some reason I would consider it.

Becker Barbera

2010-11-08T22:33:00.000-06:00

Stephen and I had his sister and her boyfriend over for wii and wine and we had them pick a wine. They chose this Becker barbera, which is an EXCELLENT wine. This wine has a really unique smell and I was trying to look online somewhere for what it is and came across sandalwood. That is exactly it! And possibly a bit of mint? The flavor is also amazing - it has a subtle spiciness yet is a relatively light wine. It doesn't taste or feel thin at all though, which is something I hate in a wine. There is still some fruit in here, but it is not the dominant flavor.

I am sad to say that the barbera is no longer on the Becker website, which leads me to believe they are not making it any more? :( This may the last bottle I ever have! Also, speaking of Becker, Stephen and I joined their wine club when we went up there in June and haven't picked up our shipment yet. We signed up for 3 wines every 3 months, and they are supposed to be special limited release and exclusive wines. At this point, we are just going to wait a few more weeks and pick up our September shipment along with our December one (which is supposed to have the Raven wine in it - their special!).

To go along with our wine, I made a cheese plate! Ahhh the days of cheese plates, they have been severely lacking in my life lately. Anyway, I cut us up some aged gouda, gruyere, and parrano and all were delicious. I think the consensus was that the parrano was the best one, although all were amazing. In my opinion, the gouda paired best with the barbera.

Chisholm Trail Blanc du Bois

2010-11-06T22:58:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how, but we have THREE of these wines. I think the Round Rock Grapevine Market closing sale is partly to blame. Anyway, it is definitely time to drink one of them. Stephen just got back from a week long business trip to New York, so we decided wine was in order. As always, this blanc du bois is exceptional. I was curious as to what grapes are in here so I looked it up and found out blanc du bois IS the grape. Apparently it's some man made hybrid? It's similar to a sauvignon blanc but with just a hint of sweetness. The flavors are perfectly balanced and this particular wine has definitely citrus but also some floral notes as well as peach.

I love this wine so much I am definitely going to have to investigate other blanc du bois. In fact, I have a blanc du bois Haak white port that is A...MA...ZING that I got at the wine festival in May that I might have to revisit soon. This might have to be my "it" wine of the moment. 2 thumbs up!

Halloween Party Wines!

2010-10-31T01:43:00.000-05:00

We all went to a Halloween party hosted by the people I babysit for and had a fantastic time! There were costumes, lots of snacks, pumpkin carving, ghost stories, etc. There were a bunch of kids there (ours included) but it was also very relaxing and chill for the adults. They really decorated their house well and like I said, there were TONS of snacks, which in my opinion, makes for a good party! We were offered drinks, so of course I went straight to the wine. I was the driver, so only had 2 smaller glasses.

My first was...

This was a J. Lohr Cabernet and was just ok. Pretty standard cab. However, my second wine was fantastic.

I have never heard of Hamilton Estates, but this merlot was top notch. I just wrote about how that Cameron Hughes merlot didn't wow me, but this wine was so packed with flavors! Fruity, tannic, possibly herby and chocolaty. So much going on! Like I said, I was the driver so I had to take it easy, but if I see this wine around, I may just have to pick up a bottle and investigate it further.

Wine and Cheese Party

2010-10-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

I was invited to a wine and cheese party held by someone at my school and my first thought was "what wine should I bring???". After much deliberation, I decided I should bring our Chisholm Trail Blanc du Bois because its so delicious, but then selfishly, Stephen and I thought we should maybe keep that one. :/ We won't be drinking our own wine when there are so many options there, so we decided to bring one we wouldn't miss too much lol. We had no idea what kind of party this was going to be! We ended up bringing one of the last Cameron Hughes wines, the chardonnay.

There were a lot of people, and I want to say maybe 20 - 30 bottles of wine there and I wanted to try them all! There were a few repeats and definitely some everyday wines, but some really stood out. We poured maybe 1/4 glasses so we could taste lots. Here were some of the favorites of the night...

All of those were really good! Near the end of the party there was a lot of wine left so we just started our own tasting party. We poured about a sip of each of the wines that were still open and didn't find much we liked. We talked with a few other people about what they liked and it turns out the best wine of the night went pretty fast right at the beginning. Now I know I'm in the company of some serious wine drinkers, and will have to contribute accordingly next year!

The main focus of the night for me was on the wine (and chatting!) but there were definitely some great cheeses too. The theme seemed to be lots of softer cheeses, and I had the chance to probably try 4 or 5 brie looking cheeses of varying deliciousness. MAN I just love wine and cheese tastings like that. A fun time was definitely had!

Cameron Hughes Lot 169 - Merlot

2010-10-18T22:24:00.000-05:00

This wine was so hyped up when I got it. We found it at Costco and the lady there said it was a prize winning merlot and was super delicious. We actually ended up getting 2 on separate occasions, not realizing it was the same wine lol. It's from the Napa Valley, which I recently visited, so I was interested to try it. We took it home and had it a few weeks later, and thought it was pretty good. Not super spectacular, but a solid wine. To me though, merlots don't have a distinctive flavor, they sort of just taste like a generic red wine so maybe that's why I wasn't particularly blown away. I think this was around $10.

Messina Hof Port

2010-10-08T22:04:00.000-05:00

I wasn't such a fan of the other Messina Hof Port we tried a little while ago, but this one is GREAT! I don't know if it's a different year or what, but this one was actually quite delicious, while the other was almost undrinkable. Yay for Messina Hof redeeming themselves! :)

2004 Muller Catoir Riesling

2010-09-20T19:30:00.000-05:00

We have kept many of our wines way too long and are making more of an effort to drink some of the older ones (especially whites). This is a more expensive dry riesling we got when Grapevine had its close out sale, and decided it was time to drink it. I honestly have no idea how much this wine cost - it was a long time ago and my attempts to look it up online have gotten me nowhere. Seems like it might range between $25 - 50 (which we bought for 1/3 less).

At first we thought this expensive wine might be CORKED! When we took the cork out it was totally wet and we were seriously worried. However, it ended up being fine. On first taste, I did NOT like this wine! Yuck! It was very bland and dry and did not taste anything like I expected. The next night, though, it was tasting a little better. And finally on the third night it was probably the best, although I did not get very much from this wine to be honest. I would not buy it again and especially not for the higher price we paid. I do think Stephen liked it a bit though, but dry whites are more his thing I suppose.

Cameron Hughes Lot 176 - Pinot Noir

2010-09-14T21:31:00.000-05:00

My friend Dominique came over and we decided to open a bottle of the Cameron Hughes Pinot Noir. This wine was just mostly ok... I didn't think it had too much flavor to make it stand out in my mind, but it was very drinkable. Not bad, but not great either. I'm really sad I didn't think to take a picture of it. That's all I have to say about that!

Labor Day Weekend and Wines!

2010-09-07T18:38:00.000-05:00

Just like on July 4th, we spent the Labor Day holiday with lots of family. It was great to sit around, relax, and catch up on all the craziness that has been going on around here - it seriously has been the busiest summer of all time. We brought a wine, and my parents decided to open the bottle of malvasia bianca we gave them from San Francisco. I think this is the first wine from our trip that we have had! When we first tasted this wine at Blackstone, I remember it tasted VERY sweet! However, when I tasted it again on Sunday, it was much tarter than I remember. This is almost surely because at Blackstone we tasted many strong red wines, and in comparison, this one was like a dessert lol! Anyway, we all tried it and I believe everyone liked it! I got hints of grapefruit, lime, and still a definite sweetness. I think even my mom liked it, although it was strong for her at 12.5% alcohol! She's used to 7% wines haha.

The 6 of us each had only about a half glass of this, so that my parents could keep a little for later. We decided to open the wine that we brought, which again, was a Cameron Hughes wine! We brought the lot 151, which is a riesling/chenin blanc blend. When I first opened this wine, I thought it tasted VERY much like apples - almost a bit too much! I could taste the chenin blanc more than the riesling for sure. It was still good though. However, we took back the rest of it and I tried it again the next day and WOW! It was much better! Very crisp and much sweeter like a riesling. Too bad we only had a little bit left, I wanted more! :) So delicious!

We chatted, drank wine, watched wedding videos (Stephen's parents still hadn't seen them), played lots of catch outside, and Taboo. Of course we had delicious food and lots of desserts including...

The Monster Cake! :o So cuuuuuute!

Cameron Hughes Lot 170 - Zinfandel

2010-09-03T18:23:00.000-05:00

We were so impressed with the first Cameron Hughes wine we tried, we wanted to see what their zinfandel was like. I had high hopes for this wine, because I remember hearing the word Lodi on some of the bottles of zinfandel out in the wine country, and they were delicious. However, I just looked it up, and its actually a region about an hour and a half away from the Napa/Sonoma area, so I don't know what I was drinking after all.

ANYWAY, the wine ended up being very good! Again, it was a bit strong for me - 14.9% alcohol! I'm finding out that this level just seems to be too much. Here is the description of the wine from the website, which says it tastes like strawberries, dark chocolate, and peppercorns! :o The mouth feel was great, it was a great balance of fruit and tannins overall. Very good, but didn't really have that WOW factor the syrah did. I must say that this wine was better the second time I tried it, after being open a full day! Maybe it just needs to open up a bit. I would give it a solid B rating.

Messina Hof Port

2010-09-01T18:16:00.000-05:00

Ugh, this port... I just don't even know. It's not good at all. It has been a really long time since we opened a port, and this one was clearly the wrong one. Sorry Messina Hof, you have some good wines and even a good port, but this one was gross. It tasted like cherry cough syrup and there were basically no redeeming qualities. It was thin, flat, flavorless, and uninteresting. It's about $17, and not worth it. That's all.

Deerfield Red Rex

2010-08-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

Today is a very good day, and one for celebration! We have had a lot of stress in our lives lately, and it all came to a close today. To celebrate, we thought we would open one of our nicer bottles of wine, and the Deerfield Red Rex is a nicer one we have had for a few years now. It is a red blend of cabernet, merlot, syrah, and a few other things. If you remember, I actually visited this winery when I went to Sonoma, and thought it was a bit intense. The wines were very alcoholic and strong, and this Red Rex was no exception - it was 14.6% alcohol for starters!

It definitely had an odd, indescribable quality about it as well that I could definitely tell was a Deerfield wine. They all have a very raw spice flavor about them (clove? cedar?), which makes them unique in my opinion. Unfortunately, it's not necessarily a GOOD taste, and while Stephen loved it, I thought it was a bit too much for me. I ran it through the aerator a few times, and the wine itself was not bad at all, just not my personal favorite. I looked it up at Specs online, and it runs about $25, and I probably wouldn't pay that much to have it again.

Cameron Hughes Lot 156 - Syrah

2010-08-23T22:56:00.001-05:00

I was so excited to see these Cameron Hughes wines at Costco the last time I went, so when I went again last weekend, I decided I HAD to try them. I don't know why they intrigue me so much... maybe it's the fact that I don't know exactly where they're from, or what exactly is in the bottle. It's like a wine puzzle, which I LOVE! The one I decided to try first as the 2007 Syrah, Lot 156. When I first opened the bottle, I thought this wine was really great. Most syrahs I have tried are strong, peppery, and a bit alcoholic. This syrah was surprisingly soft!

I quite enjoyed it the first day, but stretched it out over several days to see how it would change. The first day it was delicious, and the second day also. However, by the third day, the wine tasted a bit flat and was growing more acidic. If you are around a place that sells these wines, I would definitely recommend checking them out, and not leaving it open too long :).

Blackstone Sonoma Reserve Merlot

2010-08-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

I hardly ever buy random wines, since I go to tastings around town and usually buy my wine from those. But every now and then it's fun to just go out to a place like HEB and get something totally new. So that's what I did, and ended up choosing this Blackstone reserve merlot. Stephen and I visited the Blackstone winery in Napa and LOVED all their reserve black label wines, and since this one was on sale ($10 instead of $18), we thought it was a safe bet! Uh... we were wrong.

This wine was way too strong for one thing. It smelled and tasted very strongly of alcohol, and didn't have too much flavor. In fact, it was almost undrinkable. I ran mine through the aerator about 5 times and it was a LITTLE better, but still just too much for me. Aren't merlots supposed to be soft and fruity? Stephen was convinced this wine was corked, meaning its basically gone bad, but Im unsure about that.

I tried this wine the next day as well and it was again, a LITTLE better. What is up with this wine? Overall I did not like it, and that makes 3 in a row :/.

Uma Sweet Malbec

2010-08-04T22:58:00.000-05:00

I tried to drink that chardonnay again and it still wasn't very good so I decided just to consider it a lost cause. Why continue to drink bad wine? So I ended up just tossing that one and trying a different one I've been anxious to try again, my sweet malbec. When I tasted this wine for the first time, it was at a Specs tasting and I remember it tasting very sweet and fruity. However, when I tried it again at home, it pretty much just tasted like a normal malbec lol :/. I guess maybe it tasted sweeter the first time because it was with a bunch of very dry reds, so in comparison, it was almost like a dessert. I forgot to take a picture of the bottle and can't find a pic online to use either. Oh well, overall this wine was alright, but not what I remembered it being. :(

Cameron Hughes Wines at Costco

2010-08-02T23:32:00.000-05:00

Cameron Hughes is a genius. This guy buys excess juice from wineries that sell their wines for top dollar but can't sell their entire stock. He then bottles it in a pretty plain bottle with just a bin number, doesn't say where it's from, and sells it for much less. (Read about it all here). The result of this is that you can buy a very pricey bottle of wine for cheap... except you may not know exactly what you are drinking. He has been known to work with very prestigious wineries though, the kind I may have visited in Napa and Sonoma. This is VERY interesting to me and I want to buy them all and try them all and try to figure out where they're from (not that I would have any idea lol). It's like a wine tasting puzzle... and the best thing is that I saw 6 of these wines at Costco!!! I didn't get any because it was just too overwhelming, but I am still thinking about getting like 1 of each. There are plenty left...

Peregrine Hill Chardonnay

2010-08-02T23:20:00.000-05:00

I bought this wine a while back from a Specs tasting because it was only $6. At the time, I thought it was a pretty decent, if simple, white wine that would just be a drinkable table wine. I haven't tasted it again until now, and I must say I'm not that impressed.

For one thing, the smell is a bit weird. It smells a bit like pineapple juice (and tastes like it too!). The color is a dark yellow which is a little weird, and it looks thick like jello. The wine just isn't that appealing overall, but the taste is actually ok. It's just kinda there - nothing too interesting.

I also decided it was time to bust out some of my old cheeses that have been in the fridge for probably like a month... don't worry, they are still delicious! Time to get rid of them though. On the left is some Beemster cheese, and I don't even know exactly what kind, as the wrapper is half gone. On the right is grand queso, which is manchego like - oily and rich. Delicious!

Note: Those white spots on the cheese are NOT mold. It's just aged and a little jagged.

Moscato, Malibu, and lots of cheese!

2010-07-31T23:01:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen my parents since the wedding, and we had to exchange presents and suitcases and various things, so we decided to make a trip over to their place. As always, we ended up having some wine and cheese!

First of all, my mom made some delicious goat cheese again, which was the best it's ever been! Apparently she used a different kind of orange - it was less sweet and more tangy and citrusy- YUM!

It is especially good on a graham cracker!

Along with the goat cheese, she opened a bottle of Castello del Poggio from the fridge. This is one we have had before and is always delicious (its only 7% alcohol though lol).

Then, I found out they loved the malibu drinks at the wedding so much that they bought the ingredients to make them at home! Basically it's just cranberry juice, pineapple juice, and coconut rum. So we decided to try it out. The mixture turned out pretty yummy, but THEN we thought it would be even better as a slush! So they got out the ice cream maker and we tried to freeze it.

They turned out great!

They also had bought some OTHER cheese, so we got that out later. There was a raspberry parmesan style cheese, which nobody thought really tasted like raspberry but was delicious nonetheless.

There was also a cheshire cheese which was pretty strong and a bit odd. The texture was kinda grainy. I think this was Stephen's favorite.

We also had cake, opened wedding presents and birthday presents, and just generally relaxed. We got to finally see video of parts of our wedding which was fantastically funny - I'm glad it turned out so well! Also, Madison and my dad built a funny playhouse for my parents' dog out of tinker toys, which was hilarious.

As soon as I get some pictures from the wedding and rehearsal dinner, I will post those as well! :)

Specs Wine Tasting

2010-07-30T22:27:00.000-05:00

I bet you thought I would be tired of drinking wine already right? Never! It just so happens that there was a Specs wine tasting 2 days after I got back, so I had to go. One funny thing I noticed was that I was still pouring out my tastings by habit! I have been doing that all week in California, and it feels weird not to now. Like once I have gotten the flavors, I'm done with it and can throw it out (unless I just love the wine).

There was nothing too amazing at this tasting - most of the wines were boring or just ok. None really stood out to me, and honestly this may be because I just got back from tasting $100+ wines that are VERY good. I did find one thing I was interested in, and that was an Italian vermentino. This is a white wine that tastes a bit like a sauvignon blanc, and was very unique to the tasting. I didn't buy anything because I really don't need any, but I will definitely keep my eyes open for this kind of wine in the future.

Coming back to Austin!

2010-07-27T21:44:00.000-05:00

So our last day in California was pretty uneventful. We woke up and had a fairly boring breakfast. I was still incredibly sore, so we had to pick someplace close. I was literally hobbling.

Before we left, we wanted to bring back souvenirs for us, friends, and family, so had to do that before we left! Finally, it was time to pack and get out of here.

The rest of our day was just spent getting to the airport and flying - ugh we had a connecting flight which took FOREVER! It was a pretty boring day overall, but we are finally back in Austin!!! :)

San Francisco Marathon!

2010-07-26T03:36:00.000-05:00

The day is here! My first marathon ever! To be honest, I've been in a bit of denial about the race the last few days, and especially this morning. I tried not to think about it, and just pretended I was going out for a small run. Marathons are so complicated, you have to make sure everything is perfect. You have to try out all your clothes beforehand to see what shoes, socks, shorts, etc all work. You have to use body glide, a slippery substance in a deodorant stick to avoid blisters. And you have to find a way to carry enough water and Gu (snacks) to get you through the race. I actually had a bad callus on my foot that has been causing me pain, so I was very worried about that for the race.

However, the day had come, and here we are about to begin the race!

The start was very exciting, and again, to avoid being nervous, I just didn't think about the 26.2 miles to come.

The San Francisco marathon is actually a half and a full marathon totaling 24,000 people. Only 6,000 people were doing the full marathon. This one is known for its route across and back the Golden Gate Bridge as well as the massive amounts of hills.

Here is a view of Alcatraz in the distance!

We encountered pretty flat ground for the first 3 miles and then started to go up until about mile 5. The Golden Gate in the distance!

Then we started crossing the bridge!

It is a 1.7 mile bridge that you run across, make a small turnaround, and then run back. Here we are on our way back across, around mile 8 or so.

Coming back into the city, you can see all the buildings in the background.

Can you see the hills?

Around mile 12, my first time getting to go with the full marathoners! :)

13.1! Halfway there!

Still feeling good! In fact, I was probably peaking around this time. I was excited to be running more than the half, and started speeding up through mile 15 or so.

A group decided to serve beer around mile 14 lol.

Dailymile was at mile 15, serving bacon!

Stephen ran into this 17 mile sign lol... we are all getting tired at this point.

Mile 20!!!

To be honest, I was feeling absolutely terrible by this point. Unless you have run a race this long, Im not sure how to explain it other than ABSOLUTE exhaustion. My legs locked up, the soles of my feet were hurting, and I was mentally exhausted. It's very discouraging to come so far and be SO tired, and still have 4 or 5 miles to go. That's still a decent run! It hurt to even walk!

I just had to shuffle the last few miles, along with lots of walking. The entire race I was afraid I wouldn't make the 6 hour cutoff, and that was my only goal. There are pacers along the way holding time signs and as long as you are ahead of them you kind of know where you stand, but we had lost track of them.

Dying at 25 miles... SO CLOSE...

So close, pictures before the end.

OMG ALMOST THERE! MILE 26!!!

We start getting really excited and try to sprint the finish. We throw our arms up and pass a bunch of people and sprint across the finish line!

The finish line!

DONE!!!

Us with our medals!

It hurt to walk, I could barely squat to sit down, but the medal, attention, and snacks felt so good! We got a TON of snacks, including a smoothie, water, juice, muscle milk, a yogurt parfait, cookie, scone, banana, cheese puffs, and corn puffs... yeah a ton.

Toughest marathon ever, us in front of a cool sign.

I was worried about finishing under 6 hours, but we actually did WAY better than that! It was a complete surprise, because there were no clocks and it was almost impossible to know when we started and finished. So we were both ecstatic to find out it only took us 5 hours and 10 minutes! That's Stephen's fastest time, and an amazing first marathon time! Especially for a very hard and hilly course!

So then we walked the mile back to our hotel... no... LIMPED the mile back to the hotel, took showers, ate a ton of our snacks, and took the biggest nap ever. When we woke up it was like 5:30. We planned to go to Weird Fish but apparently it's CLOSED on Sundays! ughghghg... we were starving and couldn't walk very far, so just went back to the mall's gourmet food court.

I got an unagi (eel) bowl with veggies, rice, and a side of seaweed salad.

Stephen got some spicy beef and noodles lol.

We went out for a celebratory drink at a local pub, and then came back to have the celebratory bottle of wine we bought a few days ago. Hey, its not every day you run your first marathon on your honeymoon. (Wine pic to come) We tried to go swimming but it was late and apparently they were cleaning the pool and then CLOSED it ughghg. Oh well. Tomorrow is our last day here! I have had an absolutely amazing time wine tasting and running the marathon, but am happy to be going back as well! :)

San Francisco

2010-07-26T02:44:00.000-05:00

So we started our day with a nice big breakfast at the Chieftan, an Irish restaurant near our hotel. It's the day before the marathon, so we are just eating anything and everything.

We then headed off on the 1 mile walk to the marathon expo. It was CRAZY crowded...

After we picked up our packet, bought some Gu (gel like running snacks for those of you who don't know), and bought some discount running shoes ($50!), we decided to explore a bit of the city. We couldn't go too far without a taxi, and really wanted to check out a really good wine shop, so just stuck close to our hotel.

Here is the Napa Valley Wine Exchange, the best wine shop in the area. They have tons of Napa area wines along with smaller vineyards neither of us had heard of. We actually found the delicious Prager petite syrah port we had been wanting for a discounted price! It was $34 at the winery, and only $24 here! Also, we grabbed a Pine Ridge cab/merlot blend for after the marathon.

We found this place on our walk to the wine place, and they were advertising a $3 happy hour with $3 appetizers, so we had to stop in.

It turned out to be DELICIOUS! They had a special cocktail of the day, which was a John Daly, which is a tea, lemonade, and vodka mix which is amazing.

We also got calamari and paprika fries appetizers.

We had planned to go to Weird Fish for dinner, which is apparently amazing fish, including a special "Suspicious Fish Dish" we were really excited about. However, we had appetizers and drinks about 6pm, so weren't hungry for dinner until after 9, which was a little late for Weird Fish. So we decided to go eat pasta right across the street at Buca di Beppo instead. We got a HUGE plate of pasta with artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, peas, and a white wine cream sauce for only $20.

It was just what we needed to prepare for the marathon the next day. We finished our bottle of Miner sangiovese and went to bed early. Yes, we drink wine before races.

Napa and San Francisco!

2010-07-25T00:52:00.000-05:00

Today is our last day in Napa Valley, so we are tying up some loose ends and then heading on to San Francisco! We had a fantastic breakfast, packed up, and then went off to go to the final wineries of the trip. We were going to make our way up to Healdsburg to J. Rickards, my best friend's favorite winery. Our plan was to stop along interesting wineries along the way, with no real plan.

Our first stop was Cosentino, because we had a coupon for 2 free tastings.

This place was actually really good, and I ended up getting a bottle of wine here for a gift. It is their zinfandel, which is so unlike other zinfandels we have tried. It is super fruity and delicious, with just the right amount of complexity and tannins.

We also had a coupon for Alpha Omega and I am SO glad we decided to stop here, it turned out to be one of the best wineries of the whole trip.

This place was so fantastic, and we had an amazing pourer. He was impressed with us because we were actually TASTING the wines and not just drinking them to get tipsy. He called the dump bucket the "bucket for designated drivers" and the "bucket of common sense" which we totally agreed with.

We told him we were on our honeymoon and he gave us the special treatment. He let us come into the barrel room and taste $175 wine straight from the bottle! :o

Let me just say - this wine was fantastic! The whole experience was completely amazing and we loved every second of Alpha Omega. We ended up buying a fairly expensive wine here ($69) because it was so delicious, and plan to age it for 5 to 10 years and drink it on our anniversary.

This is definitely a place we would join the wine club for when we are older, as most of their wines are a bit pricey for us. All the wines here were VERY good though! Unfortunately, they don't distribute to Texas, but if for some reason I ever see them, I will definitely buy more in the future. DELICIOUS!

We were running out of time a bit, but definitely had to stop at Costello del Amarosa, which is famed for its castle winery.

The scenery here was absolutely amazing, and I would have loved to take a tour, but we didn't have time. Also, we heard the wine here was fairly average, so it was worth skipping.

Finally, we drove up to the Healdsburg area, which is north of Sonoma and Napa. We had originally planned to spend an entire day here, but realized we would not do the area justice, and decided to just come visit it next time we came up to wine country (which hopefully will be within a year or two). Our main stop was J. Rickards.

This winery was so different from the places we had just been to. For one thing, there was no tasting fee. The winery was very small, and we actually got to meet the owner, Jim Rickards! It was very small and seemed very homey. Everyone was SUPER nice!

We actually loved everything we tried here, and the server even gave us a FREE bottle of moscato because it was our favorite and we were on our honeymoon. She was great at giving us tastes at whatever we wanted, and very friendly. We ended up buying 4 bottles of wine here, plus the free one, which is the most we have bought from any place. The prices here were also fantastic, averaging about $20 a bottle.

I'm actually a bit regretful we did not have more time in this area. Kris told us most wineries up here had the same laid back style with minimal tasting fees and super nice people. Sadly, we were out of time and had to get to San Francisco, so had to leave the area. :( We have been borrowing Kris' car, so met up to him to give it back and chat a bit.

He dropped us off at our hotel and we checked in. Here is the view from our 27th floor room!

We were starving and wanted to go some place quick, so decided to go to the San Francisco mall which was practically next door. They have a gourmet food court with lots of delicious food, so we decided to go there.

We also wanted to go swimming, so looked around all over the mall for a swimsuit. I can't believe I forgot all my swimsuits at home! Oh well, it's July... so there should be lots right? WRONG! It's San Francisco and nobody goes swimming here lol. I finally found one super on sale at Bloomingdales almost by chance and got a $118 swimsuit for like $35!

Later that night, we were feeling hungry again, so we went to a local diner and got some regular normal food. Grilled cheese and fries!

And some clam chowder!

We also went looking around the city for a good place to buy a bottle of wine for tonight and after the marathon. We found the Press Club, which has somewhat fancy bottles, and ran across a Miner Family sangiovese that we thought would be pretty good, since we liked their other ones.

I think that's pretty much it for our first day in San Francisco!

Napa Wineries - Day 2

2010-07-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

We woke up this morning and just had breakfast and packed up, since we had to switch hotels tonight. Our first stop of the day was Black Stallion.

We had heard from some people that Black Stallion wines weren't really that great, but we loved them! We had a really nice pourer, and our tasting fees here were complimentary, so I'm definitely glad we went.

We went to the next place, Darioush, on a few recommendations. We heard the winery was absolutely stunning, because it's a Persian palace!

We visited here and took pictures, but decided not to taste the wines this time. For one thing, it was a $25 fee for 5 wines, which was pricey, but also you were seated and served huge glasses! It definitely looked like a luxury experience, but unfortunately we didn't have the time to do all that.

We tried to go to Signorello but it was closed except by appointment... ugh.

So our next stop was Clos du Val.

We had a really laid back server here, who I think had indulged in a bit of wine lol. He was really fun, and was telling us about how this winery is "vindependent" and does wine the way they think it should be done and doesn't aspire to Wine Spectator's esteemed list. Very cool! He also noticed my rating system and gave me a taste of a $125 cabernet to see if it would get an elusive A... sadly it was just ok... it got a B+ lol.

Here we are signing the declaration of vindependence...

I had wanted to stop in at the next winery, Pine Ridge, because I have had a delicious wine there, the chenin blanc/viognier.

We stopped in and they had high tasting fees and I wasn't too into their wine selecion list ($15 for 4 reds), so we decided to move on.

So we went to Baldacci.

Baldacci was cool, we had a great person working with us, and met a really fun couple who were buying tons of wine there (a case of this, half a case of that...). From what I remember, we had pretty good wines - very bold - but they were a bit pricey.

The next place was super cool, and was in like a barn. It was Prager Portworks. We had asked around for a good place that made ports, since we haven't seen very many on our trip, and were recommended to go here.

When you went into the barn, the entire place was covered with dollar bills with writing on them. Very interesting!

It was a $15 tasting fee for 3 ports and 2 wines but totally worth it. We had a petite syrah wine which was pretty good, and some VERY good ports. They had a ruby, tawny, white port, and a dessert riesling, all of which was amazing. Then, I asked about another one on their list, not on the tasting sheet and they let me try it! It was a $35 petite syrah port and fantastic as well. I would have bought it if they refunded the tasting fee, but they didnt :(. Oh, we got the glass for free though.

The next place was just for fun... we had to go.

As was expected, the wines were not very good. They were overly sweet and too drinkable. My wine snob came out though when we overheard other customers saying how they "usually dont like merlots, but love this!" when drinking white merlot and other ridiculously sweet wines. The tasting was free though and they had copious amounts of free pretzels and mustard, so yay to Sutter Home!

Back to our new bed and breakfast, Lavender Inn, where we had a fantastic hostess who was hilarious. The snack was amazing... deviled eggs and artichoke brushetta along with cheese, crackers, and wine again.

We got a recommendation to a local wine tasting room in town, Girard, which was open late so decided to go there for a bit.

It was very nice inside! The wines here were pretty good, but nothing too memorable. Also, we were nearing the end of the day, so my tastebuds were getting a little tired and nothing would taste that great anyway.

We also tried to go to one last place, but I was exhausted and we got there a little late so missed out on a lot of their tastings. Apparently they are not allowed by law to pour past 7pm. Let me also take a moment to emphasize that we are POURING OUT our tastings. We do not drink all this wine! We would either end up in the hospital or completely drunk out on the streets. Most places will pour a generous glass for each tasting, but professionals like us (lol) will taste about 1/5 of it in small sips and pour out the rest. Most places totally understand and are not offended at all.

On to dinner! We went to a nearby place called Hurleys, which was very nice and delicious.

Stephen got a barrel glass of zinfandel... which I think was alright. We had an appetizer of DELICIOUS tempura squash blossoms filled with goat cheese... oh... my... gosh they were delicious.

And then I wasn't very hungry so just ordered the potato and leek soup, and Stephen got the roasted wild boar, which he was excited about. I tried it and it was actually not bad.

That was it for our adventures. Our room has it's own outdoor hot tub so we tried that out, which was fun, and then that was all!

Napa Wineries

2010-07-22T09:47:00.001-05:00

We woke up and ran this morning through downtown Napa and I must say it is NOT as beautiful and scenic as Sonoma. :( Very grey, lots of contruction, and it looks very old. I did get a picture of the back of our hotel/bed and breakfast, the Blackbird Inn.

There was a wonderful breakfast waiting for us when we returned!

And a coupon table full of discounts to wineries!

Again, there are just SO many wineries out here that we can barely even scratch the surface, so we had to just go on recommendations, coupons, and what is close. We have both had Robert Mondavi wines before, so thought that would be a good place to start.

This place was BUSY! Its a beautiful winery and very popular, unfortunately it was $20 for a tasting of only 4 wines. Psh! We have a million other places to go, so we skipped this.

We tried to go here, but it was closed except for by appointment... no thanks.

So we just kept going and ran across Peju, which I have had before. Kris gave me a bottle of their Provence and we both loved it, so we figured this place was worth a shot.

This place was very formal... you were supposed to wait by the entrance to be escorted to a tasting table lol. So different than the mad confusion and crowded tables we've seen other places. It was also annoying though because we had to wait like 10 minutes for a table.

I thought Peju was pretty good! The guy who was telling us about the wines was a bit longwinded, giving us too much story and background about everything, but the wines were very good. I loved their Provence again, as well as a sweeter white they had called Carnival I think. They also had an area where they had delicious mustards and chocolate sauces to taste!

Our next place was Beaulieu Vineyards, where we had the NICEST lady helping us.

Beaulieu had a fantastic selection of whites, which is rare out here. Most wineries focus only on reds, with maybe 1 token white thrown in. I didn't personally like them, as I thought most of their wines were too acidic and had a common weird flavor, but Stephen loved them! The lady here found out we were on our honeymoon and took us into the club member room where we were given special champagne!

She also waived our tasting fee when we bought a bottle of their delicious port - something they don't normally do. So overall we had a FANTASTIC time here!

Our next place, V. Sattui was very beautiful! It had picnic grounds with a market to buy lunch.

Look at all those cheeses!

However, everything was super expensive. We spent $25 on just this...

This place was super annoying. It was very large inside and was PACKED! We had to wait around to find a spot and then we had to share a pourer with like 10 other people. She was good, but was overworked and wasn't too into it.

The next place we went to was Miner Family Vineyards, and we thought this place was not bad. I don't remember anything being fantastic there, but everyone was very nice and their wines were alright.

We picked the last place of the day because it was one of the few wineries in the area open until 6 (most close around 4 or 4:30).

This place was GREAT! They had amazing servers who were really fun, knowledgeable, and attentive, and the wines were really good as well. We learned that you will smell different parts of the wine depending on where you put your nose in the glass.

And also how to roll a glass around on the table (without spilling the wine) to look at the color!

It was very fun, and we would have stayed longer and tasted more wines if we weren't trying to get back to our hotel by 6 in time for the big snack! Stephen actually wanted to go back there the next day, as it turns out it was very close to our next bed and breakfast, but we didn't get a chance.

Our awesome snack... crackers, cheese, and tons of veggies and ranch.

We took a little break and then went out to dinner later that night at a place called Morimoto. This place was much better than our previous sushi place. The entrees were very pricey ($20 - 40) but the sushi was very cheap and delicious and averaged about $7 a roll. Yum!

That was all for day 4 of the honeymoon! :)

Kenwood Wineries

2010-07-21T01:33:00.000-05:00

We started our day again with a delicious breakfast (no running for us this time!) and tried to figure out our plan for the day.

There are tons of wineries in the Sonoma area, and seem to be broken down into Sonoma, Glen Ellen, and Kenwood. Kenwood has half a dozen wineries all within about a 2 mile stretch of road that are very easy to get to, so we decided that would be our best bet rather than spreading out across the whole area. We got some recommendations, gathered some coupons and went off.

I must say the Kenwood area is a bit more scenic than downtown Sonoma, and the wineries are a bit different. A lot of the ones we went to are VERY beautiful and everyone there is SUPER nice! We told people we were on our honeymoon and they gave us free tastings! :o

The first one we went to was St. Francis.

This place was very cool, and we ended up liking a lot of their wines. The good thing too is that many of their common ones are distributed to Texas! We ended up actually buying a wine here because it was so delicious - their port! Very smooth and tasty and $30 for a full size bottle. We will probably let that one sit for awhile before opening it.

Most people may recognize the next place we went to... Blackstone!

These wines are very common in Texas as well, but I am so glad we stopped by this winery! We both especially liked their pinot noir and zinfandel. They only taste their reserve wines here, so they are not the ones you would find on shelves in Texas sadly. We did end up loving a wine here that is almost a dessert wine and tasted like a moscato, called Malvasia Bianca. Very sweet, 12.5% alcohol, and we got a few bottles for family since we knew they would love it too. I think we are going with the idea of checking a case of wine on the airplane. Apparently it's done all the time!

The next place we went was literally across the street from Blackstone and turned out to be one of the most delicious wineries so far! It was Chateau St. Jean (no pic of the sign :( ). This place was amazingly beautiful...

We were recommended to skip the regular tastings here and go directly across the courtyard to the reserves. We had a 2 for 1 tasting and we upgraded it to reserve, and then it ended up being free so it was quite a deal!

We shared a tasting of 5 wines and they were all beyond amazing. This was probably the most consistent winery we had been to so far. Unfortunately they were all beyond our price point ($40 - $90), but if we see the lower end ones in Texas, I would definitely be willing to give them a try! Another thing I loved about this winery was that they served cracker sticks...

Most of the wineries out here don't have any food whatsoever, which is annoying because then my taste buds are shot by the end of the tasting.

Look at all these wineries!

The next place we went to was just a tasting room, as the wineries are very small. It was for Muscardini and Ty Caton, both of which were really good. I LOVED their barbera, too bad it was $44, and actually all their stuff was pretty good. We had a really nice guy working there who knew a lot about wine.

We almost didn't go to the next place, but passed it by and were like whoa! We have a bottle of wine from there! It's Deerfield Winery, and the tasting room is in a cave! Here we are walking among tons of barrels...

I'm getting exhausted by this point and almost fell asleep :/

Deerfield had some crazy wines. They had a delicious dessert wine that tasted like tea and honey and the highest percent alcohol wine I've ever had (not a port). It was a zinfandel, coming in at an amazing 17.2%! Dang! (It was not good lol).

We made it to our new place, the Blackbird Inn, just in time for afternoon wine and snacks! Again, they had the delicious veggies and cheese and crackers.

They also have a cookie jar which is out all the time!

We checked out our room, which was pretty cool.

We have our own little patio also.

After a nap in the car and a short nap in our place, we were ready for dinner! We decided to go to Sushi Mambo on a recommendation and it turned out to be just ok.

The sushi was probably alright, but we could barely taste it under all the freaking sauce!

After sushi, we thought it would be fun to go to a pool hall, something neither of us has done in a long time!

Neither of us is very good, although we had a blast and got better as we played!

I even happened to find a red currant cider there!

That was pretty much all for the night! We went home and fell asleep!

Sonoma Wineries

2010-07-20T03:03:00.000-05:00

This morning we woke up and decided to go for a 5 mile run around the town area to get a sense of where we were. Here is the hotel we are staying at, I finally got a picture of it. It's actually like a mix between a hotel and bed and breakfast.

The run around the main town area was so beautiful. There are vineyards everywhere, hills in the distance, and the weather is simply amazing. When we left this morning it was a cool 50 - 60 degrees, which is such a difference from Texas weather. When we got back, there was a delicious homecooked breakfast waiting for us!

After breakfast we showered and planned out our day. To avoid any wine/driving mishaps, we are taking alternate forms of transportation to and from the wineries. Our hotel has 6 bikes they lend out and there are about 6 wineries within biking distance so we thought we'd give it a try.

I'm not going to lie, I haven't ridden my bike in probably 5 years or so, so it took some getting used to at first but was VERY nice! Biking was very relaxing and fun! About 10 minutes later we came upon our very first Sonoma winery...

Yay we were here!

Not only does our hotel have complimentary breakfasts, but they give out wine tasting coupons to some of the nearby wineries. We got a bunch for the day, and most of them were like a buy one get one free thing, which really helped with our costs. The tasting fees appear to be about $10 - 15 per person. Sebastiani had a regular tasting menu and a reserve one, but since it was just our first place (and had no coupon), we stuck with the regular one. Another reason is that those are the wines we can find in Texas, the reserve wines are at the winery only. Here I am drinking my very first glass here!

We tried 2 chardonnays, pinot noir, merlot, cabernet, and a red blend which were all pretty good. My favorite was the 2006 Cabernet, which I gave an A-. I am learning so much about wine here already! I thought wine all from the same region was pretty much the same, yet I am learning there are definitely subtleties and differences depending on where in the Sonoma valley it's grown. After we tried all those wines, we tried 2 sweeter ones and I LOVED the 2008 Symphony, which is like a moscato. It is sweet, refreshing, and at 12.5% alcohol, still enough of a wine for me (some moscatos are like 7 - 8%)! It was amazing and only $13 but we were on bikes in the sun, so had to pass it up for now. We still need to find a way to ship wines back to Texas. The lady here recommended we buy a secure wine box and check it as a bag on the plane and said she does it all the time... this makes me nervous though lol. Ok, on to the next place!

Our next stop was Ravenswood, where we had a very generous pourer who apparently "can't count" the number of pourings he gave us lol. This place is really known for the zinfandels and I think we tried like 5 or 6 different ones there. They are VERY delicious, especially their higher end ones.

There were a little too many reds for me, and they all started blending together after a while. Again, my favorite one here was the sweet dessert wine at the end they call "party in your mouth", which was 2008 Moscato Leggero. SO DELICIOUS!

Here we are looking at actual wine grapes!

Ok now this next place was my FAVORITE!

When we went in we were the only 2 tasters there, and got to talking to the people behind the counter about jobs. I mentioned that I would LOVE to work at a winery, and the guy invited me back behind the counter to try it out :o. I'm describing the wine to the customer (Stephen) ...

I got to see what's back there, and even practice talking about the wine and pouring it! SO FUN! He said I did a great job and obviously know a lot about wine lol!

They had decent wine there, but it wasn't my favorite. The best thing was their sauvignon blanc, which was the only one we had today I think. Their zinfandel, merlot, and cabernet were all pretty good too. The people here were really what made this winery so fun, I loved every second of it!

Bartholomew Park and Buena Vista are very very close if you take a shortcut, but a few miles apart if you have to go on the roads, so we attempted the short cut. The gate was closed, so we attempted a round about short cut, which ended with us being somewhat lost in the woods for a while :( with bikes :( oh well, we got back on track but by that time were mad at Buena Vista for being so complicated so decided to skip it.

On to the next place, is this not amazing?

We had QUITE a trek to the next place, and I had a scare as my camera, ID, room key, and $20 tumbled out of my pockets onto the ride mid bike ride! :( I got them all back though.

This place is pronounced Gun Lock Bun Shoe lol. They had some pretty good stuff here - their zinfandel was pretty good (not as good as Ravenswood), and we liked their mountain cuvee red blend. It was also getting to be around 4pm and we hadn't eaten lunch yet so we grabbed a cheddar cheese to eat, which was yummy. Unfortunately you can't eat WHILE you drink, which is a bummer. Apparently the wineries need an extra permit to do that.

Beautiful lake

Ok almost done for the day. We called Tin Barn and they were closed for some reason so we decided to go BACK to Buena Vista since we had talked to lots of people and they said it was so good. I was so tired I forgot to get a pic of the sign, but here's the place.

This place had the best Syrahs. The 2005 Ramal Vineyard Syrah and even the Rose of Syrah were both excellent. Unfortunately I also gave 3 out of the 8 wines Ds. Look they have my aerator!

Ok done with the wineries! We bike back to our hotel just in time for wine and snacks, which we promptly devoured since we were starving. Weren't too interested in the wines, but tried them anyway just to taste.

After a 2 1/2 hour nap, we headed out to dinner at a place called The Girl and The Fig, which I didn't end up liking too much.

I got a really weird corn soup that tasted like corn milk, but Stephen liked his burger and we had some amazing smoked salmon.

No wine lol! That was the end to an amazingly fun, exciting, and BUSY day! :) BTW Stephen mapped out our bike route and we ended up biking 15 miles!

California, Day 1!!!

2010-07-20T01:57:00.000-05:00

Nobody wants to get up super early the morning after their wedding, but we were up like 6am this morning to catch our 9:15 flight out to San Francisco. I wanted SO badly to sleep on the 5 hour flight, but just couldn't find a comfortable position. :( Anyway, a 5 hour flight and about 2 hours of public transportation later, we were finally in Oakland to pick up my friend's car to use for the week (thanks Kris!). Starving, we got a recommendation and went to Lois the Pie Queen which turned out to be fantastic!

I got the grilled ham and cheese which turned out to be overflowing with delicious cheddar and amazingly delicious.

On the way up to the restaurant I had seen an enormous flea market, so asked about it. Turns out its a little shady, but we were redirected to another closer and smaller one just around the corner. After getting lost for like 20 minutes we finally found it.

There were so many cool booths with jewelry, purses, clothing, food, books, and just decorations. One of our favorites was a lady from Kenya who had a bunch of hand painting wooden animals. I also got like 10 used children's books for $3 at a stand after I mentioned I was a teacher! We found some delicious ginger juice, and I contemplated some other things but passed them by. On our way out we saw a really cool drum circle.

We were eager to get on our way, so started driving back up north to our bed and breakfast. We got to preview some of the marathon course and found some interesting places. I will definitely be coming back here later this week...

And we were really excited to see this...

OMG we are HERE!!! We checked into our place and then seriously 5 minutes later as we were bringing bags in we got locked out! Stupid auto locking hotel doors. Frantic, we had to call the manager (everyone had left for the day) and find a hidden key. Whew! We actually had congratulation balloons waiting for us in our room, such a nice touch!

We were both completely exhausted and it was pretty late so we just decided to go out for some dinner and call it a night. We went to a place called the Red Grape within walking distance from us and it turned out pretty good. We got a really weird pizza with goat cheese, figs, and arugula which turned out to be a very weird yet yummy combination.

And here is me drinking my first glass of wine in Sonoma. It was a sangiovese from Imagery winery and was delicious!

That's all for our first day! We are planning out our wineries for tomorrow and I can't wait to check them out!!!

HONEYMOON!!!

2010-07-19T01:31:00.000-05:00

When picking a place for our honeymoon, going to the Napa and Sonoma valleys was almost a no brainer. We both love wine and have always wanted to go and I am SO excited to say that we are finally here!!! Along with our wine tasting we are running the San Francisco marathon Sunday July 25th. Most people may not think wine and massive amounts of running go together, but we do! :) So in honor of all the wine and cheese here and the special occasion, Im going to make an effort to blog EVERY DAY about all the deliciousness I am enjoying here! Many pictures and posts to follow!

Fog Bank Pinot Grigio

2010-07-07T23:19:00.000-05:00

Yay for wine again! I haven't opened a bottle in a really long time, but decided that tonight would be a good night for some. This is somewhat of a random wine, I think I bought it a few months back at a Specs tasting but didn't remember too much about it. Apparently it was about $10 and I guess I bought it because I liked it at the time!

Drinking it now, I can see why I bought it! Its very refreshing, with flavors of lemon and lime and a bit of grapefruit. I'm not usually a fan of pinot grigios because I think they just taste like watery nothing. This one is pretty good though. Although its not my FAVORITE wine, I like it ok. I give it like a 6/10.

4th of July!

2010-07-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

I had a fantastic 4th of July! My day started out with a humongous run - 20 miles! I am training for my first marathon and its only 3 weeks away now, so we actually woke up super early and burned about 2,000 calories. Later in the afternoon, my family and Stephen's family all got together at my parents' house and had a blast! We ate lots of food, flew kites, watched some old videos, set off fireworks, and basically chatted and hung out. It was very relaxing. Of course the 4th had to involve some kind of wine, and my mom had the great idea to try to make a peach bellini! So she had bought some prosecco and frozen peaches and we made up a recipe lol.

Here is my mom trying to blend up some frozen peaches, which did NOT work very well until we added some orange juice. We also had to add some sugar because the peaches were way too sour. FINALLY we had some peach puree and poured in the prosecco.

I tried the prosecco by itself and it was pretty dry and not really my thing. The mixed drink turned out pretty ok, but not great. We needed some more ingredients, and I wonder what else they put in those delicious peach drinks! All in all, the day was really fun and relaxing!

Not a lot of wine

2010-06-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

Ugh things have been so extremely busy lately that I haven't been keeping up with my wine drinking! :( Hopefully things will pick back up again soon! In the meantime, I went to the May Specs tasting and found an amazing wine, Uma sweet malbec! It tastes a bit like a dessert wine without being TOO sweet, and reminded me of a $28 500ml wine I tried the previous month that was too pricey for me. This was only $11 and definitely my favorite thing there. I will be trying my bottle soon (I hope!).

Austin Music and Wine Festival

2010-05-30T00:16:00.000-05:00

Yay its time for the annual Austin (Music and) Wine Festival and I was so excited! For $30 you gained entrance into the festival, a commemorative wine glass, and 10 1 oz samples of wine. Last year was very interesting including massive thunderstorms, delicious cheese, lots of wine, and collecting about 5 discarded glasses. This year it rained AGAIN, but not enough to ruin the day. I went with 2 people and we all decided to share tastes to maximize our experience, so I ended up having close to 30 wine tastes. I kept notes and this is what I tasted:

Becker –

Rousanne, Syrah, and Merlot – none too memorable, the Rousanne was the only one I hadn't tasted before and it wasn't very good.

Landon –

Yellow Rose and a Cab/Merlot/Cab Franc blend – both bad :(

Mandola –

Moscato, Dolcetto, Canto Felice – all these were really weird and the ones that were supposed to be sweet were actually sour, which I didn't like!

Spicewood –

Semillion – bad

Flat Creek –

Pinot Grigio – good! This was the first decent one of the day.

Woodrose

Wood Rose was very good – it was a rose that wasn’t too sweet

Tempranillo and Merlot were just alright, I was a little disappointed because this is one of my favorite wineries.

Haak –

White Port – BEST wine there! Very deliciously sweet without being overly so, high alcohol content but doesn’t taste that way.

Blanc du Bois - meh

Brennan -

Viognier - bad

Llano -

Signature Melange - meh, the guy told me it was like a pinot noir, which I TOTALLY did not get.

Retreat Hill -

Riesling and XOXO - both just ok

Cork This -

Green Apple Riesling - not as crazy as I'd expect, but not very good - did taste like an apple though.

Perissos-

Hammet Cab, Newsom Cab - I couldn't tell the difference between the two, but this was near the end of all the tasting.

Viognier - ok

Dry Comal Creek -

Sangria - This was AMAZING!

Random White - not sure what this was, but it was pretty good! Should have found out.

Pillar Bluff-

Kitty (Orange Moscato) - Delicious! I love orange moscatos

Stone House -

Scheming Beagle Port - Fairly good, but way too alcoholic tasting for a port

Driftwood -

Orange Muscat - I was out of tasting tickets but used a dollar because I had to try this last wine and Im glad I did, it was fantastic!

I ended up walking out of there with the Haak white port because it was fantastic and one of my favorite things at the festival this year AND last! I have looked all over for it since, and never found it!

Yellow Tail Shiraz

2010-05-11T00:06:00.000-05:00

I figured I would go ahead and try my Yellow Tail Shiraz since I've had it for awhile, and I must say I wasn't very impressed. :/ This is the most popular red wine? I thought the chardonnay was ok, but this shiraz just tasted overly alcoholic and too strong. There weren't any particular flavors I could pick out and it wasn't very enjoyable. In fact, I had this open for about a week because I wasn't too eager to drink it. Blah, at least it was only $5.

Back on Track

2010-05-10T12:18:00.000-05:00

Oops, I haven't updated my blog in quite some time, but I have been keeping track of the wines I drank! Coming soon are posts on the approximate dates the wines were tasted, all between the end of March and now! Please go back and check them out! :)

Apothecary Cafe and Wine Bar

2010-05-07T01:16:00.000-05:00

I had a groupon coupon to Apothecary Café and Wine Bar and finally used it since it expired today. I never would have found this place unless I had a coupon, its in a small strip mall on Burnet Rd. We went really late, just about 45 minutes before it closed, but were sure glad we did! They have coffee, sandwiches, soups, other food, and a pretty extensive wine list. We ended up getting the Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc which we had both loved from McCormick and Schmick, and I got the weirdest wine on the list.

There was a wine from Slovenia called Quattro Mani Tocai and the description was “margarita in a wine glass”. I asked for a taste before I ordered it since it sounded so weird, and it was actually quite interesting! It was lemon-lime flavored and I swear I could smell and taste some tequila in there lol. I ordered a glass so I could try more, and it ended up not being so great the more I had of it. A little bit was a novelty, but a whole glass ended up just being bitter and a bit weird. Still, it was cool to try a wine from Slovenia!

As a side note, the food there was amazing! We ordered a smoked turkey, brie, apple, and honey sandwich and it was so delicious. They also make a really great brushetta, with super fresh tomatoes and a vinaigrette sauce. On the menu it said that Sundays and Mondays they have $10 off a bottle of wine, and most the wine is between $25 – 35 so I definitely want to come back, share a bottle, and have a cute date there soon!

Specs Texas Wine Tasting

2010-05-05T13:18:00.000-05:00

I was super excited for this tasting, because it was my favorite one from last year. I remember all the wines being so delicious! I was immediately sad to see that my favorite Texas Hills wines were not there this time, the Kick Butt Cab and Orange Moscato L. Apparently they had been at the south Specs tasting on Brodie Lane the day before – is it too obsessive to go to both tastings next year lol?

Anyway there were a lot of other good wines, some I remembered from last year. There was the Flat Creek Orange Moscato which I loved, and the Fall Creek Chenin Blanc which was just over $5. We actually went ahead and got a bottle of the chenin blanc because it sold out last year! I also got a bottle of Peregrine Chardonnay because it was just $6 and actually quite good! I always like to keep cheap bottles around the house as well as nicer ones.

Kono Sauvignon Blanc

2010-05-05T01:15:00.000-05:00

I have wanted to go this book and wine club for months now and finally found the time to go this week! I was trying to think of a refreshing white wine to go with the hot weather so brought the Kono Sauvignon Blanc I bought at a Specs tasting last month. It was just under $10 and fairly light. I actually liked the wine a lot, and thought it was a great easy drinking wine! Its crisp, and of course citrusy, although I wish I would have had it a bit colder. I still have a bit left and might try it on ice with lemon, like I had at Cork and Co!

The book and wine club was really cool! I was the new one there, but everyone was really nice and friendly. It was a bit different from Wino Divino, because people just brought their own bottle of wine and pretty much stuck to that – they didn’t all drink everything and rate them like we do. I want to actually read the books and participate in the discussions more next time!

Solera Sherry

2010-04-26T12:24:00.000-05:00

This was the first sherry I have ever tasted, and I had it at a Specs wine tasting (of course!). I never really knew what to think about sherry, but I looked it up and its pretty much just like a port – fortified wine. This one was ok, I bought a bottle for about $13 to try it some more because it was so interesting. When I opened it, I thought it tasted a bit raisiny and was almost a brownish color. It wasn’t really THAT good, and I think I prefer the ports I’ve been having. I would be interested in trying other ones to see if they are all similar.

Aviary Wine Bar

2010-04-24T12:32:00.000-05:00

My friend had a coupon here, so what a great opportunity to all get together and try a new place! Its on South Congress and is a really artsy place with crazy paintings on the wall and lots of interesting places to sit. I believe the front of it is also a store. The cool thing about this place is you can get $10 wine flights of anything on the wine list! This is a really fun place to go and share all the flights, because you could theoretically try a lot of wines. There are 3 wines in each flight and they come in cute little glasses – I think the owner said they were Russian tea cups.

We ended up getting 3 flights, and most of the wines were really good. I would definitely go here again!

Naia Verdejo 2007

2010-04-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

I bought this wine a while ago on a recommendation, and it turned out to be just ok. Its a verdejo, which I don't know much about, and I believe it is from Spain. From its description I thought it might end up being like a sauvignon blanc, and it kinda was with a bit of citrus and acidity. It was alright, but the flavors just weren't really for me and I didnt't end up loving it. It's one of those wines I give a "meh" to.

White Wine Poll

2010-04-02T12:22:00.000-05:00

The results of the white wine poll are in, and I must say they are not too surprising! :) The most popular white wine was riesling, followed by a 3 way tie between sauvignon blanc, muscat, and pinot grigio! Chardonnay only had 2 votes which was a BIT odd I thought because I always thought that was a very popular type of white. Thanks for voting everyone!

Schmitt Sohne Spatlese

2010-04-01T12:18:00.000-05:00

My mom really loves their Auslese, so I recommended she try the other very similar Rieslings they have. The auslese is like $14 and the spatlese is only around $10. I think she ended up liking this one, although maybe not quite as much as the auslese. In my opinion, both are TOO drinkable! They only have between 8 – 9% alcohol and I bet I could down a couple glasses without even realizing it or feeling the effects.

Campobarro Boxed Wine

2010-03-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

I found this boxed wine at Whole Foods, and thought I should give it a try. I love the idea of a boxed wine thats actually GOOD, because then you can just have a little here and there without worrying about finishing the bottle before the wine goes bad! The franzia I tried was not very good, but it was only $11 for the equivalent of 7 bottles of wine. This tempranillo was $20 for 4 bottles of wine.

It was pretty decent - a few interesting flavors, but mostly just a good table wine to have around. It actually went pretty fast lol, and I guess it was worth the $20 I paid. It still comes out to about $1 a glass though, and for a little more than that price you can probably find a few wines that are more interesting than tasting the same taste for 4 bottles worth. I would be willing to try other similar wines though, just for the experience.

Most Popular White Wine in the World

2010-03-21T16:18:00.000-05:00

Yellow Tail Chardonnay is the most popular white wine in the world apparently, so I had to see what all the fuss is about. I remember having Yellow Tail in college, and it was probably the first wine I ever had. I think its not considered very high class among real wine drinkers, and its so cheap that there can't be too much to it. So then why is it so amazingly popular, selling I BELIEVE around 20 million bottles a year? I had to find out.

I found this wine on sale at HEB for an unbelievable $4.99 and decided to test it out. As I poured myself a glass, I cringed at what would be coming, basically expecting the worst. However, on first taste it wasn't that bad at all! It was not oaky or buttery, or anything that I would expect a chardonnay to taste like. In fact, it was a little sweet and fruity - very drinkable! I couldn't really pick out any distinct tastes, although it did smell like grapefruit and oranges. Then, the more I drank it, the less I started to like it. It's not a wine to savor. In fact, it started to just taste like alcoholic apple juice.

Overall, this wine gets like a 4. Its not good or really bad, but is a little unpleasant and something I probably wouldn't buy again. It was only $5 but for $6 or 7 you can actually find a few decent wines. I also bought the Yellow Tail Shiraz (most popular red wine in the world) and will be trying that as well soon! :)

Cork and Co

2010-03-19T18:59:00.000-05:00

SXSW is in town, and we went out to see some day shows Thursday. We were a little early, so decided to stop by Cork and Co. I loved it so much last time, I wanted to go again! We went for happy hour (3 - 7 on weekdays), and got some great deals on our drinks. They have a few drinks for $5 instead of the normal 7 or 8.

The first thing I had was something called the Velentin Bianchi New Age, which was some sauvignon blanc on ice with lemon and it was GREAT! It tasted like a really delicious lemonade and was extrememly drinkable. Im going to have to try this style at home sometime. We also got a really weird wine ( I think from Hungary) called Monte Volpe Tokayi Friulano, and I didn't like it. It was very dry and almost bitter.

For only $5 you can pick a cheese, so we picked manchego and I was surprised by how much other stuff came with it! Not only was it the cheese, we had dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, crackers, and bread!

We decided to each have a second glass of wine, since a nice wine was probably cheaper here than a gross drink at a bar later. On the menu it said they have a south american specialty every day and so I ordered that - turns out it was a malbec. I didn't even think to ask what kind it was :(. It was pretty decent, but just tasted like your average malbec - nothing too special about it. Our other drink was a pinot noir, and I wrote down it was a R. Merlot... but that doesn't seem right lol. So basically I don't know what either of our second drinks are.

Antonelli's Cheese Shop

2010-03-17T18:32:00.000-05:00

I have made my way to Antonelli's, and must say I am impressed! It's about time Austin had its own cheese shop, and I will do everything in my power to make sure it stays here. Its very small inside, and there are only maybe 50 - 75 cheeses. The owners will let you sample anything you like, as many as you like! :) They also get in new cheeses all the time - they sell out of everything about every 3 days, so all their cheeses are super fresh. :o The atmosphere there is very relaxed, and they let you take your time finding what you want. The first time I went, I came out of there with 2 cheeses, a gruyere and a weird clothbound cheddar.

The prices are a little higher than you might find at HEB or a similar store, but you are definitely are paying for premium cheese here. The second time, we got 3 cheeses, an ossau iraty, a goat cheddar, and some mariekas gouda... ALL were amazing! Pictures to come soon.

Engagement Wines!

2010-03-15T18:07:00.000-05:00

Everyone who knows me is already aware of this, but I am now engaged!!! :) This actually happened a few weeks ago but Im just now getting around to writing about it here because I wanted to review the wines I had that night. It wasn't really a big surprise, because we custom made the ring, but the actual date and time were surprise enough! The ring is AMAZING...

We went out to dinner at McCormick and Schmick and got some amazing food. Of course we had to have wine to celebrate, and we had just picked out our glasses when we noticed they were now serving wine flights! :o I LOVE wine flights, because then I don't have to commit to just one! They are actually a really good deal, because you get 3 glasses of 3 ounces each, although it seemed like way more than that to us! It's $12 and you can pick from any wines that are served by the glass.

We decided to each get a flight, which would give us 6 mini glasses to taste :o. When picking, we generally went with the most expensive glasses on the menu, and wines that just seemed interesting.

The three wines I ordered were the Crossings Pinot Noir, 14 Hands Cabernet, and J Vineyards Pinot Grigio. The Crossings Pinot Noir was really delicious, and we rated it a 9 and 8 out of 10! The 14 Hands was the wine I was originally going to get and it is amazing, we both rated it a 9. I ordered the pinot grigio just to try something new and because it was one of the more expensive ones. It turned out to be ok, but not great - we rated it a 7 and 6.

Stephen ordered the best one of the night - I would have gotten it if he didn't. It was the Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc, and I don't know why it was so good, but it just was... delicious. We both rated it a 10, and I looked up it and its about $17 a bottle at Specs so I might get it sometime! He also got the Don Miguel Gascon Malbec, which was pretty good (rated 7/8), and the Bonterra Viognier which was pretty good too (rated 7/8).

We topped off the night with some creme brulee. It was so amazing, and we are both so excited about the engagement! The wine was delicious, and I love the fact that I can get reasonably prices wine flights there. I will definitely be back! :)

San Angelo Pinot Grigio

2010-03-14T17:35:00.000-05:00

I was babysitting some kids for 3 days straight and was amazed to find that the family had left a wine for me in the fridge! It had a note that said "Don't want this to go bad, please drink if you like"! Wow - now that is just thoughtful! I must say after a long day looking after kids, a glass of wine is a nice way to relax. :)

The wine itself is not my favorite type. Usually I think pinot grigios taste a little watery without much flavor, and this one was not an exception. It was definitely drinkable though, and I find myself liking dry whites more and more.

Also... this is my 100th post!!! :) Hooray!

Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc

2010-03-13T20:25:00.000-06:00

I went downtown for a Flaming Lips concert (which was AMAZING, by the way) and we were a little early, so stopped by a bar to have a drink. We went to Ginger Man, which is pretty cool if you like beer since there are tons of beers on tap there. Unfortunately, I hate beer but they also had a pretty decent wine and port menu. Lately I've been getting into sauvignon blancs because I've found a few I haven't hated, so decided to go with the Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc for $7 a glass. I looked this up on Specs just now and its about a $15 bottle, so their prices are NOT BAD considering it was a bar. The wine itself was just ok... it was pretty dry and bitter to me like most sauvignon blancs I've tried, but it definitely was drinkable. It tasted a bit watery to me, but I would have liked to try it with some food. I'd give it maybe a 6/10.

Ewephoria and White Cheddar

2010-03-12T14:36:00.000-06:00

This Ewephoria cheese is probably one of my new favorite cheeses. Its a sheep gouda, and has a deliciously nutty flavor that reminds me a bit of Parrano. I bought this at the last Specs tasting and have been eating in in tiny chunks to make it last!

I also have an amazing organic white cheddar from Whole Foods that they have sampled the last few times I've been and it taunted me until I broke down and bought it. I really like the flavor of this cheese - its really sharp - but the texture is a little weird. Its really soft and a little gooey, which I've never experienced with a cheddar. Still, its delicious and less than half the price of the Ewephoria!

What a terrible picture, but you get the idea!

Chisholm Trail Dessert Wine

2010-03-12T14:19:00.000-06:00

I can't believe I forgot to write about this wine! I actually had this delicious wine the very end of February at a "Death by Chocolate" event at Cafe Monet. Cafe Monet is a place where you can go and paint your own pottery and then pick it up a few days later after they glaze it. There are a few places like this in Austin, and they're really cool. Well they were holding an event where for $10 a person you could eat unlimited chocolate while you paint! They allow drinks and food to be brought in, so we thought it would be a fun way to spend the evening.

They had tons of chocolate cake, cookies, brownies, chocolate covered fruit, and just plain chocolates! It was all amazing, and I had brought a sweeter wine that I thought would pair well and it DID. I have had the Chisholm Trail Dessert Wine for some time now, I think I bought it when Grapevine was closing. Its actually a cabernet, 18.5% alcohol, and yet sweet and delicious. This reminded me a bit of a port and was very smooth and VERY drinkable. Its a 2/3 size bottle and about $19 and well worth it... it is SO delicious.

It was so much fun to paint and relax while eating tons of chocolate and enjoying such a delicious wine. There are lots of things to paint at Cafe Monet, but most are kinda large and a bit expensive. I decided to paint a small dinosaur, since these were super cute, only $15 each, and there were 3 different ones to choose from.

After they were glazed they came out a lot darker and very shiny and are such a cute way to remember the night!

Antonelli's Cheese Shop

2010-03-10T16:21:00.000-06:00

All I have to say is... WHAT!? I just found out Austin has its own cheese shop... is this new? How long has this been here and WHY have I not been there yet? Don't worry, I will be going there asap to check it out and will for sure be back with tons of cheese!

February Shiraz - Indaba

2010-03-03T15:38:00.000-06:00

I am behind again on the shiraz drinking! This is now the 3rd shiraz from the Christmas 13, and its a 2008 Indaba Shiraz from South Africa. We are drinking the red wines in the new huge glasses, so I am definitely smelling a lot more from the wines we drink. My first impression of this one was that it STUNK! It also tastes a little weird, although I couldn't put my finger on exactly why. The winemaker's notes say "This fresh, juicy Shiraz flaunts lively flavors of ripe blackberry, blueberry and dark chocolate, with hints of white pepper, licorice and spice.", but I definitely didn't taste all of that. I thought it was pretty good, and I tasted some cherry and spice, but to me it wasn't THAT complex. Comparing the 3 I have tried so far, I would have to say the first one was the best.

Birthday Wine

2010-03-02T21:08:00.000-06:00

My mom's birthday was the other day, and I'm always trying to get her to try new things, so of course I had to get her some wines! I went to Specs to get some recommendations and left feeling a little disappointed. I didn't really want to spend a lot on a bottle of wine, since my mom is so picky and might hate it. I also didn't want to get something cheap and disgusting, so it was tough trying to find a balance. My wine guy tried to help me find something and I ended up getting 2 wines for her to try.

The first one was this Spier sweet white, which was a little stronger than she was used to (about 12%), but supposedly still sweet and delicious. It has sugar added actually. This wine turned out to be a BUST! It was pretty terrible, and tasted like pineapple and even I thought it was pretty bad. Never one to waste wine though, I found that when mixed with orange juice, it was actually quite delicious. I took this one home since my mom hated it so much, and had it a few days later with my boyfriend and we agreed it actually wasnt so bad anymore. It was only $8, but I would never get this wine again.

The other wine was something I was a little unsure of. It was a Lambrusco, which is a sparkling light red wine which is pretty fruity and a little sweet. It was only around 8 or 9% alcohol, and only $5. Since it was so cheap, I figured it was good to try just to get a sense of what kinds of things she may like in the future. Guess what... she actually LIKED it! No kidding, this wine was actually pretty tasty! It was refreshing and slightly interesting and best of all, inoffensive.

I told her if she likes this, she may want to try some white zinfandels and wines of that nature. When I first started drinking wines, Im not going to lie, my favorite was white zinfandel. It tasted like a delicious sweet strawberry drink. That could be slightly embarassing, as these wines are not very highly regarded among wine drinkers, but I forgot that they are commonly drunk by people just getting used to wine! I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Now I have some ideas about what she should try next.

Poll Results!

2010-03-01T20:39:00.000-06:00

Thanks to everyone who voted in my poll this month, "What is your favorite type of red wine?". The winner was pinot noir with 7, followed by shiraz/syrah with 5, with the rest of the results pretty evenly spread. I was a little surprised by the shiraz, and the fact that only one person voted for cabernet! :o Very cool! The new poll is up, and as you could probably have guessed, it involved white wine.

Specs Wine Tasting

2010-02-25T12:24:00.001-06:00

I went to the February Specs tasting last night, but there was nothing very momentous. In fact, I only found a few things I liked. One was the Mud House Sauvignon Blanc which was really good, and I found some sheep gouda called Ewephoria which was AMAZING. There were some brownies there that were also at the Austin Chocolate Festival which were delicious, so I got an orange liquor flavored one.

Kinda meh overall this time.

Drinks at the Mohawk

2010-02-23T14:52:00.000-06:00

I went to the Mohawk a few nights ago for a concert and while perusing their bar area was surprised to find Sake2Me drinks for $1! I don't really like sake, and have never heard of that brand, but figured what the heck for a dollar. What I got was a wine cooler bottle full of delicious flavored cold sake, asian pear to be exact. It was pretty good! Unfortunately, it must have been a short lived special because when I went back less than an hour later, they were all out. So I figured I would give their wine selection a try, even though wine is WAY overpriced almost everywhere.

They only had one wine and it was Robert Mondavi Cabernet. Having no other drink options (I hate most mixed drinks), I gave it a try. It was a tragic $6 for half a plastic cups worth. I later saw the bottle at a Walgreens for only $9. Ugh. Anyway, the wine was not bad. It was drinkable, and had a very strong dried cherry flavor on the finish which I loved. Overall, it was pretty decent.

Vino Dei Fratelli

2010-02-20T14:09:00.000-06:00

This is another moscato from my extensive moscato tasting lately! This one is super light.. only 5.5%, so it's barely wine to me. It tastes very refreshing and delicious, but because of the low alcohol, it doesn't have any punch to it. Super drinkable, almost too much so for me. I would recommend this to non wine drinkers, and anyone who just wants a (VERY) light wine.

Relatives, King Cake, and a Wine Tasting

2010-02-16T13:20:00.000-06:00

A few of my relatives were in town from New Orleans last weekend, which is great because I hardly ever get a chance to see them. We see each other every other year or so at weddings, but thats about it because of the distance. I used to live in New Orleans when I was younger, and one of the things I always miss this time of year are the delicious king cakes! King cakes are a Mardi Gras tradition from New Orleans, and although they are sold here in Austin, they are NOT the same at all. Well imagine my delight when I see 2 authentic king cakes sitting on the table! :o

This one was bavarian cream and cherry.

This one is the original flavor. Basically king cakes taste like an incredibly sweet cinnamon roll.

They are delicious, but so sweet you can only really eat a little at a time. There is a hidden plastic baby inside, and if you find the baby in your piece, you are considered lucky and are supposed to buy the next king cake.

My mom had bought some wines for my family to all taste, so we ended up having a bit of a wine tasting with our cakes. First we had the Castello del Poggio, which everyone liked (of course).

Then, we had a sparkling sweet red she tried at an HEB tasting. I've never had a sparkling sweet red before, so was intrigued. It turned out that I didn't really like it very much... for one thing it smelled like rubbing alcohol, and didn't have too much of a flavor. My mom said it was better the next day though, I guess after it had opened up a bit.

The final one we tried was one that I had recommended, a Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc/Viognier. This is the wine I tasted on my birthday, and had with my friend Kris when he came to visit. Its delicious! Well most people ended up not liking it, except my uncle, who is a somewhat regular wine drinker. Oh well, I took it home with me, and it too was better the next day.

Im seeing a big theme as I write more about wine and cheese - wines need to be opened and cheese needs to be set out a while before you eat/drink them!

The day was really fun, and we ended up playing Apples to Apples and 20 questions until it got late and they had to go back to their hotel. We also had some delicious goat cheese, that my mom bought plain and mixed with honey and orange peel! I need to take pictures the next time she does that.

Manchego

2010-02-10T12:49:00.000-06:00

I always seem to forget to take pictures and write about the cheeses I try, probably because I tend to eat them so fast! However, this is one of my favorite cheeses, so it's pretty noteworthy. Manchego is a sheep cheese, and is super oily and delicious. It goes extremely well with wines, or is great on its own. Around the edges its kind of hard and crumbly, but in the middle its soft (both are amazing!). I eat this cheese pretty regularly actually.

January Shiraz - Koonunga Hill

2010-02-09T12:26:00.000-06:00

This was the lower priced shiraz from Australia, and I immediately recognized the Penfolds brand from the last Specs wine tasting. I had tried two Penfolds shiraz's there, one at $10 and one at $20. The main difference between the two was that the lower priced one was made from grapes all over Australia, and the $20 one was made from grapes all grown in the same small area. They tasted about the same to me.

So it was cool to try yet another Penfolds shiraz! I thought this wine was pretty good, but it didn't really blow me away. It tasted a bit like blueberries which was cool, and was a bit spicy but nothing very concrete. I remember feeling a lot more excited about the December shiraz. Basically it was good, but kind of simple.

Franzia Update

2010-02-07T15:33:00.000-06:00

I first posted about my box wine the beginning of December. Its been quite some time and I still have the same box so I feel an update is in order. The wine is still in my fridge, and its been... 9 weeks now since I've had it. Basically it is JUST NOW starting to change a bit. The box said its good for 6 weeks and thats absolutely true. I cant even tell a big difference now, but I am definitely getting bored of it. I don't drink it that often because its not that great, but its nice to have on hand for those times when I want some wine but don't want to open a bottle. Overall I'd say Franzia is a mild success for what it's intended to be, and I would consider trying another flavor if I had a recommendation.

Edna Valley Pinot Noir

2010-02-05T15:23:00.000-06:00

For some reason a few days ago I wanted a pinot noir… not any other wine. Who knows why, but when I got home there was one on my wine shelf so I thought why not, and opened it. Little did I know, this was the wine my boyfriend’s parents gave me last Christmas to go with a pasta meal, and is probably a bit pricey. Oops! Either way, it’s very good! I had a small bit in the new wine glasses, and thought it was pretty good but nothing too special – it was soft and fruity and light. However, I am having another small glass tonight and its different! I know it sounds weird, but the smell is really cool – its herby and salty almost like… a ramen noodle cup. I actually like this wine a lot, but I wouldn't say I love it.

Moscato Comparisons

2010-02-04T15:14:00.000-06:00

When I went to visit my parents last weekend, my mom had a few wines she wanted me to try. One had been open for a few days and was almost finished, and the other one we opened together.

The Rocca Cerrina had been opened for a few days, but I thought it tasted fantastic! It was still slightly carbonated, and reminded me a bit of a cream soda. It was very smooth, slight vanilla flavors, and a bit more complex than I usually find in a moscato.

This one we opened that day, and I must say I wasn't a big fan. It was VERY carbonated and that carbonation masked any smells or tastes I could find. It was basically alright, but nothing special. I let my glass sit out a bit and tried it later when some of the bubbles had gone away and I felt the same way. There wasnt much to this wine except sweet and sparkling.

Of the two, the Rocca Cerrina was definitely better. I will have to try it when it is freshly opened sometime!

House Wine

2010-02-03T13:18:00.000-06:00

For our January Wino Divino, a few of us decided to check out another wine bar that I've been hearing good things about. It's called House Wine, and is basically just an old house turned into a wine bar. I actually love the idea behind this wine bar. It has a cute yard where you can sit, but also each room inside the house is a little sitting area.

We decided to sit in the front area (it was like 35 degrees outside).

On Saturday nights, House Wine serves a lot of bottles by the glass that don't get completely finished. So on Sunday, they offer those wines by the glass for 1/2 price until they are all gone, which is a great deal. Their glasses are normally about $7 - 9 a glass, but on Sunday they are only about $4, which is fantastic. I was especially impressed when I ordered a glass of wine and there wasnt QUITE a full glass's worth, so they gave it to me for 1/4 price! :o

To order, you go into the "kitchen" of the house, where you can look at a list of wines opened from Saturday night. There isn't a lot of service involved - nobody comes to your table and takes your order or brings you things. To me, this made the experience more relaxed and it really felt like I was drinking wine in someone's living room! Our party all got there around 4 and stayed until 12... which is something I would never do if people were waiting on me the whole time.

The first glass I got was a Cycles Zinfandel which I thought was pretty flat and uninteresting. Then, the server recommended a sauvignon blanc that wasn't even on the regular menu. At first I was hesitant since I usually don't like those, but it was actually one of my favorite things of the night - there was only a 1/2 glass left of it! Another cool thing here... they will let you taste any wine before you order a glass (something I didn't know when I ordered the zinfandel). She also said their rieslings were pretty good, so I was debating between the 2 they had (Milbrandt and The Stump Jump), and ended up getting 1/2 a glass of both to compare!

We also had a cheese plate which was delicious too - I think ours ended up having pecorino and gouda. It came with bread, crackers, almonds, and a pretty good cheese spread also,

Finally, we saw this on the menu and couldn't pass it up. There was a brownie a la mode with a port sauce and it was STRONG.

This place had a very different feel from Cru and Cork & Co, and its so cool getting to experience the variety of wine bars in Austin. I will definitely be back here to lounge and try other wines asap!

New for 2010 - Polls!

2010-02-01T17:07:00.000-06:00

If you're reading this, you probably know a lot of my thoughts on wine, and I want to know yours too! So every month there will be a new poll to answer! Please let me know your opinions! :)

Book Review: The Wine Trials

2010-01-28T16:54:00.000-06:00

The tag line to this book says “Brown bag blind tastings reveal the surprising wine values under $15” and it is FASCINATING! The main idea behind this book is that the wines recommended to us by wine critics, magazines, and websites are not actually the wines preferred by everyday wine drinkers. This research was done using 500+ wine tasters from all walks of life (experts and non) and from 17 separate tastings all over the U.S. All I have to say to that is… WHERE… WAS… I???

Anyway, the results are amazing. For example, they compared Dom Perignon, a $150 French champagne, to a $12 sparkling wine from Washington. In a blind tasting, guess which one was preferred 2 to 1… that’s right the cheap one! (It’s Domaine St. Michelle Cuvee Brut for those of you who might go pick it up!) That’s just the beginning. In fact, overall results show that from more that 6,000 glasses of wine served from brown paper bags, people actually preferred the less expensive ones! “Tasters preferred a $9 bottle of Beringer Founders’ Estate Cabernet Sauvignon to a $120 wine from the same grape and same producer: Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.” WHAT!?

The book goes into theories about why all this is. Mainly image, advertising, selling a lifestyle kind of thing. People buy the $150 Dom because they have heard it’s amazing. It's what cool and rich people drink, and they want to have it. In fact, it DOES taste better BECAUSE of all this. But in a blind tasting, where price, prestige, and even region are concealed, people prefer cheaper wine.

There really is so much more to this book than I have room to write, and the fact that it mixes wine and psychology is why I love it so much. Now the REALLY cool thing about this book is that about ¾ of it is a listing of the top 100 wines that are under $15 and that people actually preferred to the more expensive ones. Some of these make me a little skeptical - included in this list are some box wines, Yellow Tails, Barefoots, and other wines you might normally pass over in the wine aisle. But you better believe I will be trying some of these in the near future and giving my opinions. GET THIS BOOK!

Specs Wine Tasting

2010-01-27T23:00:00.000-06:00

The first Specs tasting of the new year is a cause for celebration! On the menu were definitely more obscure wines than usual which was exciting. There was a torrontes, carmenere, albarino, prosecco, and lots of French and Italian wines. There was an Uma Torrontes, which was clearly the favorite of the night - at only $7 it was the only wine sold out. The Tres Valles Carmenere was good (but not as good as the Terra Andina). There was a white burgundy, which is really just French chardonnay, and that was pretty good, as well as the Martin Codax albarino. Five bad ones (lets not focus on those), and the rest were just ok.

I didn't end up buying any wine this time, because nothing really jumped out at me. I did, however, get some manchego they were sampling, as well as 2 cheeses which were getting a little moldy and so were 50% off. Thats not a problem for me, I just cut off that tiny but of mold.

I like bad wine

2010-01-27T16:49:00.000-06:00

Yes, I really like bad wine. I don’t like to buy a bottle of it, or even drink a whole glass, but I DO like to taste wines I don’t like. For one thing, I think its just fascinating how many ways there are for wine to taste. There are almost countless flavors, and throw in all the smells and its just endless. Sometimes I taste wine and think “whoa yuck… but what IS that taste… is that robitussin? Lentil stew? Grass?” Secondly, the wines I don’t like make me appreciate the wines I do like even more. How will I know what “good” tastes like unless I know what it shouldn’t taste like? And finally, I feel like it helps me develop my overall tastes. Very often, I try wines I’m almost sure I wont like (sauvignon blanc for example), because I’m hoping to be surprised. I love love love to be surprised by wines, and I’m looking for that wow factor. Probably 90% of moscatos and Rieslings taste good to me, so it’s not that exciting to find one I like. However, I do NOT like about 90% of chardonnays I try, so finding one of those I like is amazing.

So that is one reason why I go to all these wine tastings around town, and especially love wine flights. I like to try everything – good, bad, expensive, or cheap.

Wine Does a Body Good

2010-01-24T13:53:00.000-06:00

I try to live a healthy lifestyle and along with all my wine and cheese, I like to run. This weekend I did the 3M half marathon and despite an achy knee, finished in 2 hours, 13 minutes, and 53 seconds J. And I had wine the night before!