Two Wine Chics on a Quest

Jeepers, Peepers!

Well, it's an interesting evening here in Steelville weather-wise.  As I carried in wood through snow flurries, realized I could hear peepers.  March's lion seems to still be in full throttle around here! I sure hope those little froggies don't feeze their peepers off tonight.

I realized after Tuesday's post that I should probably give you a description of the 'Red Blend' from Alamos that I was sampling and stamping!

To start, here is the marketing spiel:

Alamos Red Blend has dark berry fruit flavors, integrated with brown spice and vanilla oak characters that form a plush mouthfeel. The Tempranillo and Syrah grapes contribute bold, spicy flavors of blackberry and black pepper which marry well with the juicy dark cherry flavors of Bonarda and the deep plum flavors of the Malbec base. The addition of Cabernet Franc helps to balance the blend, as it melds with notes of warm brown spice to create a long, supple finish.

My thoughts: I definitely got the plum a cherry from this wine, but didn't get the black pepper at all.  Even after leaving it open overnight.  Vanilla also came across in the palate to me.  The wine was super soft with very little acidity.  Clyde thought it came across sweet, but I thought that was just a function of the low acidity.

We ate chicken drummies and a vinegar slaw for dinner, and this was a 'meh' pairing.  Not terrible, but I wasn't really impressed either.  And don't give me the 'What did you expect? You should only drink white wine with chicken!'. This was charcoal grilled/smokey chicken with lots of dark meat on it, so it should have gone great with a low tannin wine.  The sweet vinegar slaw actually fared a bit better with the wine.

But then tonight, I made a big leafy salad with leftover smoked turkey on top.  I added a few dried cranberries to the salad and a balsamic vinegar & olive oil dressing.  Oh la la!  Left-over wine pairing perfection!

All of a sudden I noted lots of brighter fruity notes, and I wasn't bothered by the flabby mouthfeel of the wine anymore.

So lesson here: wines with low acidity probably need a food with some acidity in it to brighten their flavors.

This cost $13 at a local liquor store, which was not too bad a price.  After a search online though I found one for $9, which is actually a great value.  I might buy it again for $9 and if I knew I was eating dried cranberries with it!

Happy Trills,

Katie

A New Fav Sauvignon Blanc

The weather has turned colder again, but the taste of warm weather we had this past week has put me - yes, even me, who loves winter! - in the mood for spring. So while I'm sitting here listening to the sleet hit my window, snuggled up in a blanket, I'm dreaming of sitting in the sun with a chilled bottle of white wine to share with friends I haven't seen enough of in the past couple of months.

On a recent quest to one of my FAVORITE places, Trader Joe's, Tom and I discovered a new favorite summer wine. It is a Marlborough, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. It is super crisp, very fresh, with lots of up front fruit tones. And the best part - it cost $7 a bottle. WooHoo!!!!! I have a number of summertime whites I really love, but most of them run closer to $20 a bottle. This is that perfect inexpensive bottle to keep around to have a quick glass every day, or for when a group of friends stop by so you can share a few bottles without breaking the bank. With these scenarios in mind, Tom went back to Trader Joe's the next time he headed toward St. Louis, and bought a whole case of it!

So now if the weather just cooperates, I plan to start my sunny day wine drinking ASAP....

Happy Trills,

Laura

National Drink Days

It comes to my attention that today is National Drink Wine Day. So cheers, and I hope you had a nice glass or two for the occasion. However, please do not confuse this holiday with National Wine Day, which comes on May 25. I fully believe that wine is worth two national holidays.

But if those two great holidays aren't enough to get your drink on, how about National Margarita Day, on February 22. Or National Martini Day on June 19. July 10 is a good day for National Pina Colada Day, or go hardcore on the 24th of that month with National Tequila Day. August 16: National Rum Day. October 4: National Vodka Day. September 28 is Drink Beer Day, which is perfect because that's the day of our Homebrew & Homemade Wine Competition at Harvest Home Fest. Or celebrate a personal favorite of mine on National Bloody Mary Day - appropriately, January 1.

If you don't want to keep track of all these different days, I suggest you just keep one in mind: National Tie One On Day, on November 24. That way you can just use the alcohol of your choice.

Happy Trills,

Laura

Happy Valentine's Day!

What wine are you celebrating Valentine's Day with?  Here are a few of my favorite chocolate pairings for you to consider pairing up with your wine.

Sparkling wine - chocolate covered strawberries

Vignoles, Traminette, or Moscatto - orange flavored chocolate

Chambourcin - Moser-Roth 70% dark chili chocolate (find this at Aldi's)

Norton - Lindt dark chocolate truffles

Blush wines - chocolate covered pomegranate bites

Mmmmm.....I hope you are enjoying a sweet day today!

Happy Trills,

Katie

 

Cheers to Cold Season

This has obviously been a brutal cold and flu season (I'm still hacking away) and I got to wondering about some of the old time remedies out there. Happily, there are a number of them out there that contain alcohol. I know I always feel better when there's a bit of booze involved.

First, there is the ever popular Hot Toddy. This is made by mixing very hot water, 1/2 shot of whiskey, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon honey. This ought to knock anything out, and actually, the whiskey can be anti-inflammatory for the mucous membranes, reduce fever, and relieve muscle aches.

Hot mulled drinks are also good choices - simply warm wine, hard cider, ale or Port, and steep with mulling spices (cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, etc., etc.)

If you want to try something weird, one thing I read about is warm beer, raw egg and sugar. I'm pretty sure I'd rather be sick.

In Europe, a good glass of warm elderberry wine with lemon is often prescribed. In Spain, a study showed that drinking 8 to 14 glasses of wine per week, especially red wine, reduced the chance of catching a cold by as much as 60% – see Red Wine as a Flu Vaccine at the Ladies With Bottle blog. So, drink up, and hopefully you won't have to use any of these remedies.

And for the ultimate in alcoholic cold remedies, check out these cold relief cocktails at Yahoo Voices. Cheers!

Happy Trills,

Laura

The Dreaded Red Wine Stain - No Problem!

As you saw in Katie's post yesterday, I had a Super Bowl party at my house on Sunday. A good time was had by all! Of course, that means things were spilled. (Seriously, any good party will have spills.) Of all the spills, red wine is one of the most notorious. But I'm here to tell you, as a wine professional, that they are really pretty easy to remove, with the use of white wine. That's right, all you need to do is soak the stain in a little white wine and it will fade right away.

Don't believe me? Here's a photo of a pretty little white tablecloth we had on a table down at the winery.

Nasty stain, right? Well, here's an interesting video:

 

  Viola! I knew you'd be impressed. I had a little bit of our Country Estate White left over in the bottom of a bottle, and I just used it. I only needed about a quarter to a third cup. It's fun to watch the stain just fade away, like I'm in some cheesy commercial.

Here is the end result, before washing. It is best to go ahead and wash the item; no sense in having sticky wine in your things. But it does a great job, and I hope this will come in handy for you after your next party!

Happy Trills,

Laura

 

Superbowl Quest Lesson

Clyde and I headed over to Laura's for the superbowl and I had plans to show you all her great vintage football party decor. But I left the camera on their coffee table.

Erg.

I can tell you one of the decorations was a box of wheaties with the Rams on it from waaay back.  The wheaties actually expired in 2000, but we think they would probably still be edible!  I wonder what the best wine pairing would be for expired wheaties?

In any case, we did try a few wines during the first half of the game.  One fun thing we tried was a wine that Tom had made three years ago from organically-grown Chambourcin grapes.  The bottle had been left out on a side porch where it's been subjected to lots of light and temperature fluctuations.  Not necessarily the way a bottle should be stored.

But, it turned out to be pretty interesting.  They had opened the bottle well before we arrived, so it had plenty of time to breath by the time Clyde and I had a chance at it.  I picked up lots of leathery aromas & flavors, hints of coffee, and some blueberry in the finish.

Tom's winemaker lesson of the night was that he's decided that it's important to set aside a least a few bottles that "get beat to hell" for a few years, just to see how they hold up over time when not stored properly.  Hmmmm....well, that seems a bit like wine sacrilage, but it definitely made for an interesting party drink so he might be onto something here!

So I'll have to show you Laura & Tom's place another day.  In the meantime, have you ever opened a bottle you were pretty sure wasn't going to be good?  How did it taste?

Happy Trills,

Katie

Go Football!

It's Super Bowl Weekend!!! I'd be a lot more excited if my team (the Green Bay Packers) was in the game, but at least this way I can relax and enjoy the commercials and snacks.

Snacks need wine of course, and here are some great pairings for traditional football food:

German style summer sausage - try a German style wine, like Riesling or perhaps a Missouri Vignoles. Go dryer for mild sausage, and sweeter for more spicy varieties.

Mixed nuts - a light bodied, fruity dry to semi-dry red is great. Wenwood's Century Farm would be perfect.

Fresh veggies & dip - crisp and citrusy with a hint of fresh mowed grass, a Sauvignon Blanc is yummy. From Missouri, a Vidal or Seyval is a good choice.

Popcorn - a personal favorite of mine, because it pairs wonderfully with bubbly! I good Brut is ideal.

Hot wings - a good sweet white will really balance out the heat in the wing sauce. Try Peaceful Bend's Sweet River White.

And of course, the traditional wine pairing - cheese! Mix and match to find your favorites; it's hard to go wrong in this category.

Happy Trills and Go Football!

Laura

 

 

Need A Laugh?

If you are on any type of social media, you've probably already run across someecard.com.  If you haven't seen it though, it's a fun site where you pick out a design, add your own text, and then email or post the resulting card.  It's quick, easy, and entertaining.  And boy are people creative when it comes to captions for those pictures!

Here are 5 of my recent favorite wine or alcohol themed cards:

I hope these gave you a smile today!

Happy Trills,

Katie

Understanding Wine Labels: Part 2

On Tuesday I posted the first in a series about wine labels.  I focused on the front label for that entry, and today I'll focus on the back label.

To start though, not all wineries include a back label.  If they have included all the legally required information on the front label, then they might choose to forego the expense of a second label on the bottle.  

But the back label gives a winery a way to include whatever legal information that wouldn't fit on the front, plus extra room to give you a description of the winery and/or the wine.  Generally, the back label is where you'll want to look for a more in-depth understanding of the wine in the bottle.

Here's an example of Wenwood's back label, followed by the Peaceful Bend's back label:

You can see on that both labels have the winery's name and the wine name on the back label.  Plus, we both added a description of the wine and information about our respective wineries.  Laura even has a convenient map to Wenwood on her back label.  This is all information that isn't legally required, but we hope helps you as you decide which bottle of wine to purchase.

Wineries are legally required to have the following information somewhere on our labels:

• 'produced & bottled by...' statement, 
• 'contains sulfites' statement, 
• alcohol content, 
• bottle size, 
• and the surgeon general's warning. 

While all of this information is required by federal law, the exact placement isn't dictated to us.  So you might see much of that information on the front or the back. Speaking of legal info....currently we are not required to have nutritional information available on our labels, but that might change in the future.

And jumping back to non-required information - you might also find a bar code and/or a QR code on the back label.  The barcode is pretty much a requirement for wines that are sold in major retailers and grocery stores these days.  The QR code is nice for customers with smartphones, as you can go directly to the winery website to find out more information about the wine before you purchase it.

Of course most wineries will be sure to include their website addresses on the back label too, even if they already have a QR code.  You might also find other bits and pieces of information that the winery feels you might like to know.....did anyone notice who the artist was for Wenwood's Kran Rose?  

That's right - Laura herself!  She is one multi-talented lady.

I hope today's post helped you navagate the back label on a wine.  Let me know if you have any questions!

Happy Trills,

Katie