Birthday Wine

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.