Charles Shaw and other cheap wines....

Keith Richards had a band in the 80's called "Keith Richards and the Expensive Winos"... makes me wonder... does Expensive Wino mean that they only drink expensive wine or does it mean that they are expensive musicians who happen to be winos?

I'm a wino. I love wine. Can't freaking stand Charles Shaw.... I try it now and then and find myself taking a sip and pouring the damn bottle out. I won't even cook with it. Won't pour it on anything except the drain. It's awful. With one exception - the Chardonnay. It's not awful. It's not good, but it's not awful.

Usually, cheap wine has no character. But it has alcohol. If the objective is a cheap buzz, then I guess it works. But I'd rather drink much less quantity of good wine than more quantity of bad wine.

Bad wine gives me a headache. It doesn't go well with food. Hell, it makes reading a book painful. It's distracting, not enhancing. Bad wine sucks.

Most cheap wine is bad wine. Then again, some expensive wine is also bad wine.

Now and then, something comes along that is really good and really cheap. But not two dollars cheap. Five dollars.... maybe. Seven or eight dollars, reasonably possible.

My favorite wines in the bang-for-the-buck category usually are priced between $10-20... there's some great wines in this category.

I'd rather drink one good bottle that costs $24 than a whole case of Charles Shaw at the same price.

And, if only Charles Shaw is available?

Pass the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Cheers!

Wine for Christmas

Yup... forget Holidays.... Labor Day is a Holiday... Memorial Day is a Holiday... New Year's Day is a Holiday.... Christmas is Christmas....

Then again, I guess you could technically call any day that you get off work a Holiday...

Then again, any day can be an even better Holiday with some nice beverage... i.e. wine.

Over the last 5 months, I've written all kinds of posts to this blog and I don't think anyone is reading them. I may as well be writing in a little journal or diary and tucking it neatly into a night stand before crashing each evening.

Oh, well... doesn't matter. I think this is my first post in about 7-8 weeks. And it's all about getting pleasantly toasted for Christmas.

Perhaps this is because I've had a nice 22oz bottle of my home-brewed IPA tonight and 3 glasses of 2006 3 Rings Barossa Shiraz - one of my favorites. Or maybe it's because I found a bottle of 2008 Yellow Tail Shiraz for $4.99 at Target this afternoon. Or maybe it's because my Rosenblum Red Rangers shipment arrived last week. Or maybe it's because I've been expounding all year long about the merits of buying Columbia Crest wines only to watch its' 2005 Reserve Cabernet top Wine Spectator's Top 100 list for 2009.... or maybe it's just because I like to drink.

It doesn't matter, does it? I mean, whatever is your liking, enjoy it. Whether it's a Holiday or Christmas or both.... all I know is that Jesus turned water to wine... and in the movie "Bottle Shock", it is quoted that wine is the perfect blend of sunlight and water... or something like that... I was drinking when I watched that, too.

Well, in these recessive times... to hell with all of you who think that a $500 bottle of wine is better than a $27 dollar bottle just because it's really cool to brag to all of your Lexus-driving friends that you can match your monthly lease payment on grape juice.... to hell with you. Why? Because if it tastes good, the rating doesn't freaking matter. If it tastes good, raise your glass and say.... with a big healthy intoxicated smile across your beaming mug....

Cheers!

I remember that!

It's been about 6 weeks since I last contributed to this little series of wine exploits... somewhat because I'm a bit discouraged. I have no idea how to market this or what to even do with it! I love wine and think it would be fun to work around it in some capacity. However, the only credentials I have are pretty much self-learned or gleaned from the expertise of friends. Truly, some of these friends are very knowledgeable about wine and hold fairly high level positions in the wine industry. I've learned alot from them. But, I also pretty much "wing it" when it comes to my wine selections.

Oh, I do the basic stuff like red wine and red meat, white wine with white meat, etc... then I go off and have red wine with a burger or fish, or white wine with tacos or hot wings, then have another red wine to finish things off. It's fun to experiment and I really don't have any boundaries for this. Once we drank a Petite Sirah with sushi! Did the stuff match? Not at all. But the wine tasted good and the food tasted good and that's all I cared about.

Recently, we opened a bottle of 2001 Justin Isosceles at the Melting Pot in Santa Barbara. It worked great. Of course we tasted all kinds of different things... fish, chicken, beef, cheese, bread, veggies, etc... so, the food was all over the place - not to mention the spices and sauces. The wine held up fine. In fact, after sitting out and breathing for about 30 minutes, it softened up into a phenomenally smooth wine but still had the structure to maintain its elegance in spite of the onslaught of flavors circulating the table.

Other wine I've tasted over the last month include the 2006 Columbia Crest Reserve Cabernet (needs to sit for a while... it's far gentler than the robust 2005)... 2006 3-rings Barossa Shiraz, 2005 Zaca Mesa Syrah, 2006 Rosenblum Rockpile Road Zinfandel... heck, can't really remember them all.

No matter. I'm not really sure what the purpose to this blog is at all, except perhaps a casual journal that I might look upon one day and say... Hey... I remember that!

Cheers!

2 glasses of wine....

Last night, I did some music at JT Schmids in Anaheim in the open air patio.... during the evening, I decided to try some wine by the glass.

The first was an Acacia Chardonnay... filled with oak, some nice pear and peach nuances... it was served in an appropriately tall glass with about 7oz of drink. It was also served chilled. This gave the wine a slightly harshness that dissipated as the wine warmed up.... then the rough edges smoothed out and it was really delicious!

The 2nd was the 337 Cabernet from Lodi.... ordinarily, I'm not big on this wine, but, last night - served in the same type of glass as the Chardonnay (a non-crystal glass about the size of the average Bordeaux glass from Reidel)... this wine tasted quite good. Perhaps it was because I followed the oaky Chardonnay, but the 337 had some nice berry fruit with a bit of tobacco and coffee notes on the finish... yeah, the finish was relatively short, but it was not unpleasant at all.

Bottom line? Sometimes it's just nice to get a glass of wine and not overly intellectualize it... just drink it.

After all, it's still grape juice!

Cheers :)

Miscellaneous Wine and Beer Stuff

It's been about a month since I last posted something here and there's a good reason for it. I've had nothing to say.

Yeah, I've enjoyed some nice wines during that time... the 2006 Justin Cabernet, the 2007 Concha Y Toro Cabernet, 2005 Zaca Mesa Syrah, 2007 Mollydooker Syrah... and I've tasted some good beer.... Bear Republic's Racer 5, Stone's Arrogant Bastard, and Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA....

And I've come to a conclusion. I'm currently bored with wine. There's nothing really exciting to me right now in terms of tasting something that gives me the sensation of WOW! In other words, in my budget... say... $7 - $30 per bottle, I've probably spent around $30,000 in the last 7-8 years...

So, I've tasted a lot of wine. And - nothing blows me away anymore. Yeah, there's some good tasting stuff and rarely do I taste something that I simply do not like - however simple the wine is.... but, really.... it's still just grape juice.

I've actually been navigating over to beer.... the problem is it's so freaking filling and I'm not a sipper when it comes to beer... I like to DRINK it! So, it goes quickly and sits on my waistline. Not good.

But my taste buds say different. My taste buds don't care about my waistline or my budget or my opinion. And I've found that, at least for now, beer is more interesting than wine.

Wine notes from the road....

Let's start with a visit to Barnes And Nobles in Chico, CA... walking around during a rare visit with mom... not because mom and I aren't close, but because of geography... I find the Twinkies Cookbook. Something is very wrong here!Anyway, later that evening, I visited my dad... and we grilled up some rib-eye steaks - purchased at Costco for the bold price of only $7.99/lb. I've not found better meat at a lower price anywhere.

The wine we enjoyed was the 2007 Mollydooker Two Left Feet. I really like this wine and wanted to turn my dad onto it as he's a big fan of Australian Shiraz - the cheap stuff - because it's good and cheap. The Mollydooker is bold and full of flavor... dark berries, licorice, mocha, and holds up very well rib-eye steaks. Oh, did I mention that we cooked over oak and manzaneta?

Well, my journey had a few other detours as well. I had the distinct pleasure of visiting The Wine Room in Paradise, CA. This is a charming little boutique with quite an inventory of gifts, cards, and various trinkets that my wife might be more familiar with than I am.... but they have a very nice little wine inventory.... in fact, I found the magnificent 2005 Columbia Crest Reserve Cabernet here and bought one.... I think they have 3 or 4 left. It paired very nicely with grilled slightly Cajun-spiced salmon - again cooked over oak.
Of course no visit to the Chico/Paradise area is complete without a stop by the Sierra Nevada Brewery. Dad and I enjoyed a nice lunch - a nice hoppy Torpedo IPA - and a small tour of the facility. If you're ever in town, visit the Sierra Nevada brewery. The food is great, the building is beautiful, the people are honestly friendly, and the concert hall deserves a peek as well. Oh, the tour area smells like fresh hops!

After leaving Paradise, I made my way down to Moss Beach to visit family and enjoy more wine and food. The Seal Cove Inn is a wonderfully charming chateau located within walking distance from the ocean, a bunch of seals, and a fantastic sunset! Looking over this while enjoying the 2006 Rosenblum Lyons Reserve Zinfandel from Napa Valley is a pleasure all by itself.

Well, two days at Moss Beach and we were back on the road, stopping in Paso Robles at the Denner Winery to check out their new member facility. It's beautiful. The view is sensational. The people are very nice. The wines are great. Enough said.

The trip culminated with a visit to friends in our local area to enjoy some homemade pizza and a nice bottle of 2004 Columbia Crest Walter Clore Reserve. Well, we also opened a bottle of 2005 Turnbull Cabernet and a bottle of 2006 Provenance Cabernet and.... needless to say, we slept very well that night.

When all is said and done, a couple of nights ago, an old friend visited and we duplicated menu items from the Morton's Steak Bible - bacon-wrapped scallops, Cajun rib-eye steaks (I'm a big fan of rib-eye)... their signature spinach salad (in the cook book but no longer on their regular menu)... and washed it all down with a bottle of 2005 Domaine Serene Pinot Noir and a 2006 Justin Isosceles.
It's been a great month... a tasty month.... and one filled with good food, tasty wine, and, most of all, great friends and close family. It doesn't get much better than this.

2005 Rosenblum Sonoma County Hillside Vineyard Syrah

I love finding new wines... new for me, I mean. Of course, I have varietals that I love more often than others.... Syrah being one of my favorites.

Last night I opened a bottle of the 2005 Rosenblum Sonoma County Hillside Vineyard Syrah and enjoyed two glasses with a Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger.... no ketchup or mustard... just lettuce, a thin slice of tomato... that's it.

And, damn, if this wine didn't just hold up but the flavor just kept coming and coming... hints of dried cherries, blackberry pie, mocha, and the unmistakable finish laced with soft tannins and white pepper.

This is a wine that just keeps on giving.

Enjoy.... Cost Plus World Market currently has a great deal on this wine. One of the best deals around on any wine in this price range!

Cheers!