Category: Wine

In our ongoing adventure in learning about wine, we bought an unknown brand to go with our Christmas meal: a Covey Run Cabernet Savignon from Washington State. We had an eye of the round roast, baked potatoes, and baby glazed carrots for the meal, which was splendid, but which conflicted horribly or was completely overrun by the flavor of the wine, which I wasn’t overtly fond of just by itself either. It seemed to have a sour taste that had nothing to do with ‘robust flavor’. I wonder if it might have been better with something more zesty than your basic meat and potatoes, but that might have added even MORE conflict to the taste – just not sure. In any case, it was a learning experience – maybe next time I’ll stick to a Merlot when making a roast beef, and only kick the wine selection up a notch when we have an enthusiastically marinated steak or the like.

I was browsing the wine isle in the grocery store a few days ago (Note: I grew up in NY state and still find it weird to be able to buy wine and hard liquor in a grocery store! (California)), and there was a bottle of wine on sale for $2.99. Since we’re still at the very beginning of developing our ‘wine tongues’ (I think I just made that up?), I figured it was a good thing to try the really cheap wines as WELL as the more expensive ones to give ourselves a larger range of experiences. I’d had Sutter Home Merlot before, but never a (red) Zinfandel, so I tossed it in the cart.

I know that Zinfandels are pretty mild wines, but I haven’t yet determined if this was ‘mild’ or ‘bland’. It wasn’t terrible at all, but mostly just tasted like, well, generic wine, and it didn’t pack any kind of a punch. John’s opinion is similar, “Drinkable, but not very interesting.” I suppose that’s why the back of the label says, “Our zinfandel is the simple choice to compliment life’s everyday moments. Enjoy Sutter Home wines and live life uncomplicated.” (Shouldn’t that be ‘uncomplicatedly’ (if that’s a word) since it’s describing the verb ‘live’?) Anyway, we give Sutter Home credit for being so… accurate in their labeling, and thank the grocery store for not making us invest too much for the experience, which was still enjoyable after all was said and done.

We tried another excellent local wine last week, this time it was a Cabernet Sauvignon from DeRose Vinyards. The wine had an excellent fruity taste which was smooth and not overpowering. This was easily a good cheese wine, and would probably go with almost anything

John and I finally cracked open a bottle of wine that he got last year at work for the holidays: A local wine, Pietra Santa, from the Cienega (See-YEN-eh-guh) Valley; a 1998 Merlot. The first sip packed a punch in the back of the throat, but the taste was very pleasant and slightly…. musky, in the good way that Merlots tend to be.

I’d definitely recommend this wine, and think it would probably go well with a steak dinner, provided the steak was cooked without a lot of added flavorings or marinades – don’t need too many flavors jumping around together when you’ve already got the wine going too. (Oh, and steak fries would be good also. We actually just had some potato chips with it, as it was after dinner, but it was an excellent combo, if not overly genteel – LOL!)

Also, drinking wine after 7 p.m. here has the added benefit of making our hands and feet feel a bit warmer tonight as well, of course. *grin*