Christmas wine

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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!

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! :)