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.