Tilia Chardonnay

I got this chardonnay at a Whole Foods tasting probably close to 6 months ago and just now opened it. They were doing a tasting of probably 10 wines all from Argentina including about 5 malbecs, which was REALLY cool to be able to taste so many similar wines together. Our favorite ended up being this atypical chardonnay!

Its fresh and juicy with lots of fruit flavors and was wonderful to drink. Im always on the lookout for inexpensive chardonnays to keep around and this one is one of my favorites so far. Its not as interesting as the Printhie Chardonnay, but definitely more subtle and easy to drink. Its a bit cheaper too, around $11 or 12 and I would probably buy it again if I saw it somewhere on sale.

The Past 2 Weeks

I keep forgetting to keep up with this blog while there are so many other things going on right now! Here is what has been going on wine-and-cheese-wise the past few weeks:

We had our October Wino Divino which was fun as always. The theme was white wnes and I'd say the selection of wines this time was really amazing. I wrote them all down but seem to have misplaced the paper somewhere... anyway I remember some of them! We had the Carl Sittman Riesling from the Twin Liquors wine class and it was delicious the second time around just like the first. We also tried 24/7 Riesling and it was pretty good too, nothing too special. Mine was a moscato d'asti which was a slightly sparkling sweet white and it was DELICIOUS! I had gotten it at a Specs tasting and I need to look up that tasting paper and find out exactly what it was so I can get it again. We also had a champagne that was pretty sweet and delicious - I like sweet dessert style wines. Finally we had a port which everyone loved as well - Otima either 10 or 20 yrs. The only bad wine was a sauv blanc that smelled and tasted like pickles. :/

In the world of cheese, we decided to deviate from the norm this month and got a few smoked, soft, and kinda bland cheeses. Usually we go for the aged, potent, melt in your mouth cheeses so this was a big change. We got smoked mozzarella, smoked provolone, and a soft swiss. They were all alright but nothing blew me away. I know these cheeses are meant more for melting on things or as part of a sandwich, but we ate them in little chunks like we usually do. I couldn't even tell the difference between the mozzarella and provolone.

Finally, I tried a few bottles of wine this month that have long been finished and mostly forgotten. I tried the Blackstone Merlot (Sonoma Reserve) which was originally $19 but I got it on sale at HEB for $11 a while back. I also tried the Pegovino Granache and Syrah blend which was recommended to me by a Specs guy as one of the best of its style. I liked the merlot more than I thought I would, but was a little disappointed with the Pegovino. I had high hopes for it and I thought it was kinda bland with nothing special about it. Both were good, but not something Id get again.

Wine Grapes

So I was looking around at Whole Foods and they had wine grapes!!! :o There were 3 - grenache, carignan, and a white grape one I forgot the name of. I ended up getting the two red ones and was SO excited to see what they tasted like. Would they taste like wine? Perhaps thats stupid, but who really knows? The one on the left was the grenache and the right one was carignan.

Basically they tasted like regular grapes haha. And whats worse was that they had SEEDS! I guess I've been spoiled on seedless grapes because I cant even remember the last time I had grapes with seeds. :( Big, hard ones! Its just too much work to eat these, so I'm not sure what Im going to do.

So not too exciting, but cool to try!

Helfrich Pinot Gris

Mmmm this wine is delicious! I got it from a Specs tasting a few months ago and loved it there and loved it a second time tonight. I found out not too long ago that pinot gris and pinot grigio are actually the same grape, just named differently depending on where they're from. I've tried a few pinot grigios before and never been impressed, but this wine was just fantastic.

It was not only delicious, it was interesting. The smell alone was like whoa. It smelled all smoky, possibly like a smoked ham. There were also a lot of fruity flavors like peach and apricot and it was a little bit earthy. And yet... creamy as well! It was just the full package and it disappeared before I knew it! At around $12 or 13 dollars its pretty reasonable too! Extremely drinkable, delicious, and intriguing - I give it an A and will definitely buy it again.

Specs Wine Tasting

The September wine tasting was pretty good overall. It seemed a little heavy on the reds, which I prefer over whites, but when its a tasting I think its best to have about an equal number of both. Why? Because by the end of the night I could hardly taste anything due to all the similar super tannic bold reds. Aside from being delicious, the whites act as a nice palate cleanser and break between reds. Thats why I love when there is a red and a white at each station. This time there were only 6 whites compared to 14 reds.

Because of this, I tasted some really great reds, but they all tasted about the same. :( Sad. I did get to taste a carignan for the first time which was cool, and I was told by other people there that it was really great. My favorite of the night was an Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, which was tart and citrusy yet still FRUITY. Very balanced and delicious, but I didnt end up getting it.

There were also more expensive wines tonight. The Meerlust Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were normally $26 (on sale for $23) and I tried them and thought they were great! However, I wonder how much the price influenced my opinion of it. There were also several other ones over $20, which are always interesting to try since I don't normally buy wine over about $15.

There were 2 wines I hated, and surprisingly (or not) they were from the same producer - Andeluna Chardonnay and Malbec. Very alcoholic tasting and just very... gross.

There was also some very delicious cheese there and a super nice lady who let us keep coming back for more samples! My favorites were the wine washed goat cheese and cave aged gruyere! Unfortunately there was also a super gross one from Neal's Yard. This is about the 5th or 6th time I've tried a cheese from there and I've hated them ALL! How is that even possible?

Even though I may hate some of the wine and cheese I still love to try them! I cant wait until the next tasting!

Marques de Casa Concha Chardonnay

This is another one of those wines I've had for a year or two and it was just time to drink. Im not a big fan of chardonnays, so I think I was putting this one off. I originally bought it back when a nearby HEB had a clearance sale on some of their wines (originally $16).

I was pretty pleased with this wine! For a chardonnay, it was not what I was expecting, which is the usual oak and vanilla overkill. It was fruity and light with a lot of citrus and apple flavors. Yum!

Speaking of Chardonnays, I read the Wall Street Journal's wine reviews and they frequently write about chardonnays - a hot topic I suppose. Here is one about the best chardonnays under $20, and there was another one recently about high end chardonnays and which were the best. I cant find it now (ugh) but when I do, I would like to try one of the amazing ones sometime to see WHAT a really good chardonnay is supposed to taste like. I dont think I know!

Also, I usually do not drink wine with meals and I wonder if that greatly affects my opinions of them. I've heard that some wines are definitely better with certain flavors, so maybe some of the wines I dont like on here would be amazing with the right foods? I usually end up picking a wine after dinner, mostly with cheese, but maybe I will try pairing some wines with some foods in the future.

Twin Liquors Wine Tasting

Im branching out from Specs and went to the big Twin Liquor wine tasting! Just like Specs, there were 20 wines, but the tasting was set up a bit differently. All the wines were in the front of the store in a row, close together. They gave you a wine glass and you went around to taste the ones you were interested in. Of course we were interested in all of them, so we just went in line.

Everyone was super nice, but there were a few downsides to this approach. For one thing, you end up tasting wines too fast because you feel like you have to keep moving along. At Specs, there are 10 stations around the store, which lets you walk around, chat, and take your time between samples. Because of this, we got wayyy tipsier than normal - not good. In fact, because it was so quick, it didn't hit us until we were about done which is awkward and not safe if you're planning on leaving any time soon. We ended up drinking all the wine in under an hour and milling about the store chatting for another hour just to let it all wear off.

Another thing that was weird was that there was no tasting sheet to tell us what the wines were and how much they cost. No huge deal, but I like to make notes about the wines and take it home with me to look at later.

One very sad thing was that there was no food! This also contributed to the increased tipsiness, as we had nothing in our stomachs. Twin Liquors doesn't really sell food that I know of, so its not their fault... but I was craving some cheese with all that wine for sure.

The upsides: there were some really great wines! I thought overall the wines were more expensive here, with a lot of them being around $18 or 19 and only 1 or 2 were under $10. This, coupled with the fact that we were going to the chocolate festival afterward caused me not to buy any that day.

Another REALLY cool thing about this tasting was that there was a bar area where they were serving wines. Which meant you could put... your... glass... down! This is a small thing, but when you're usually juggling a glass, and food sample, and paper and pencil... it was so nice to just relax with it.

So on to the wines! I cant remember them that well since I didn't have a sheet to bring home, but I'll do my best. We tried some organic wines which were good, but wine is so variable that I didnt see what difference the fact that they were organic made. We also had a really good cab from Alexander Valley and an awesome Montecillo Crianza that we both loved. There was a pink port, which I had never heard of, and the guy served it to us mixed with sparking water which was strange. Other than those, there wasn't anything that really stood out to me.

So I liked this tasting, and will definitely make it a regular part of my monthly tasting schedule, but I would say it didn't quite compare to Specs.