So after 2+ hours of shoveling (of which I actually did about 30 minutes myself, in addition to taking out the trash, making coffee and putting lunch together!) I finally made it in to the office today to find it empty.  One other person showed up about an hour ago, so needless to say it’s been pretty quiet.  Not that I mind…  And I also finally have a good wine to tell you about this week!  I saw Li Veli Primonero Salento, an Italian blended red wine, on sale at Whole Foods for $9.99 and decided to grab a bottle.  I made home made spaghetti and meatballs last night (yeah, in the food processor, I put in whole chunks of meat in with bread and herbs and stuff and it made it into meatballs, crazy!) and thought a nice Italian would be the perfect dinner guest.  The wine consists of 50% Primitivo and 50% Negroamaro, two varietals that I had tried before but never in a half and half blend.  Let me tell you, they are on to something here!  Less abrasive than I find some Chianti’s can be, not particularly fruit forward but very soft and subtle.  I’m not always a fan of floral bouquets (I don’t like feeling like I am drinking potpourri) but this wine had pleasant floral notes that complimented the flavor nicely.  I would absolutely recommend this wine, you can pair it with food or drink it on its own, very versatile.  Yeah, new wine WIN!  Thank goodness, I really needed a win after the past few bottles we’ve had this week…  TGI Thursday!!

(photo credit Li Veli)

BAM!  Just when you thought a fancy-dancy place like Whole Foods would never stoop so low as to attempt to recreate the success of Trader Joe’s “Two Buck Chuck” (or Charles Shaw wine) purely for the sake of making a quick buck – I come across Three Wishes, a California wine from the emerging wine-producing area southeast of San Francisco.  At $2.99 of COURSE I had to pick up a bottle to try when I stopped by for some bread during my lunch break yesterday.  Granted, I only bought the Merlot, but I already had 6 bottles of wine (nice bottles) in my bag and couldn’t manage any more.  And at $2.99, the wine was more of an after thought.  Something you keep on hand for when it’s late and you want more wine but you know you’ve had enough that you won’t really taste the next bottle so you don’t want to open something more expensive.  Never something to start the evening with, right?  So I come home with 7 bottles of wine, 3 pieces of cheese, a baguette, fresh tomatoes and quicos (or corn nuts) ALL for just $80!   Thank you lady who bought our old furniture on Monday  After the gym I picked up the hubs and headed home.  I told him to pick his favorite cheese, slice up the baguette and open an interesting bottle of wine while I was changing, and when I came downstairs he had opened none other than the Three Wishes.  For serious.  I don’t blame him, there was no price tag on the bottle and he thought the bottle did indeed seem interesting (recycled glass made a somewhat thinner, even smaller looking bottle than normal…)  Against my better judgement, we started the evening with a $2.99 bottle of wine.  And let me tell you – my alert wine sense knew I was drinking a cheap bottle of wine.  But was it an awful cheap bottle?  I can’t really say it was!  Did it have a robust cherry nose, a silky smooth palate and a pleasant after taste?  No.  Did it pass for being a decent bottle to have on hand for cooking or late night celebrations?  Sure, why not!  If you’re a fan of Two Buck Chuck and want to read a funny if not occasionally scathing article comparing it to this new line of Three Wishes wine I highly recommend an article I found in SF Weekly, it is pretty hilarious.  Has anyone else tried Three Wishes?  I’m kind of dying to try the other varietals, just to see…  I hope to come back tomorrow with a review of something that is not strange or overly cheap, it’s been an interesting week for me so far, hasn’t it?  Until then, Happy Hump Day, hope I don’t loose internet in the blizzard we’re expecting tomorrow!

(photo credit San Francisco Weekly)

Good day to you all!  My, I have an interesting wine to share with you today…  At no ones suggestion in particular, this weekend I picked up a bottle of Kelley Creek 2005 Merlot as part of a 3 for $25 deal.  I didn’t think we had tried the bottle before and I thought it was worth a shot.  Well, we opened it last night to use/pair with a beef stew we were whipping up to try to warm ourselves from the -2 degree temperature (Why, Boston?  Why??) and had quite a time even just opening the bottle!  Normally I am an advocate for synthetic rubber corks but this one was nearly impossible to remove from the bottle.  Moving on to the nose.  I suppose most professionals would describe it as tinny or canned vegetable.  I thought it smelled like olives.  Green olives in a dirty martini to be exact.  Great if you are drinking a dirty martini, somewhat off putting if you are smelling a red wine.  The taste also echoed the olive-ness, it wasn’t bad, just a little odd…  It worked fine in the stew so that is good, and after a glass I didn’t really mind the vegetal quality any more.  But then we got to the end and I lost a good inch of my glass to an enormous amount of sediment.  Yes, with a 2005 bottle I should have expected or at least checked for sediment so it is no ones fault but my own, but it was still annoying.  Normally I don’t like to put negative reviews on my blog as no one likes a Negative Nancy, but I thought I would share this one because it is not entirely negative.  Like I said, I was able to get to the end of the bottle rather easily, despite the strange nose/flavor combo.  And I think there would be some people out there who would really go for this wine, people who like dirty martinis perhaps, or admire the vegetal profile.  So I share it with you just in case.  Speaking of case, we just sold some old furniture last night and now have a couple hundred in cash lying around the house.  Should we put it towards the bill for the new furniture purchased or towards a mixed case of some new fun wines?  We are getting ANOTHER snow storm tomorrow and we DO have dinner plans with a couple of our wonderful couple friends this week, so I think having some good wine on hand is a MUST.  Besides, it’s RESEARCH, right??  :)

(photo credit Kelley Creek)

Ok, sorry, but for the sake of being able to move on with my story I will have to give up trying to share with you my pictures from the fouth winery of our trip, Belasco De Baquedano.  To be honest, we didn’t have THAT may great ones anyway.  By the time we got to this stop we were running 2+ hours late (we just had so much fun with our new friends at Kaiken!) and were a bit rushed through the property.  Skipping the tour, we went right into the restaurant for lunch.  Gorgeous glass walls exposed the amazing view of the massive vineyards set in front of the almost still snow-capped Andes.  Seriously, it was almost 100 degrees and some of the tippy tops of the highest peaks had just the faintest dusting of visible snow.  Crazy.  Here is a great shot of the main building as it will look in just a few months time during their fall months, isn’t it breathtaking?

And here is the inside of the restaurant, just look at that view!

So as I was saying, we started right of with lunch.  I must say, while the food was good and the wine was plentiful, the place was a bit of a factory.  I mean they moved us RIGHT along through our 6 course meal, it took maybe 90 minutes as opposed to the typical Argentine 2+ hours.  Probably had something to do with the fact that we were the last seating on Christmas Eve, oh yeah, and again the fact that we were over 2 hours late, whoops!  In retrospect it was pretty awesome that they took us at all.  We tried 5 different wines, all made from the Malbec grape.  The first was a delicious rose, then 3 different aged Malbecs and a delicious port-style dessert Malbec to wrap everything up.  The Belacso wines are labeled under Swinto, AR Guentota, Llama and Rosa and are exported to the US.  Here is a shot of the different lables so you can keep your eye out for them.

The wines were good quality and I would definitely recommend them.  It is hard to share much more detail than that as it WAS our third tasting of the day and went by rather quickly, but it was a cool experience and I wish we could have spent more time there!  So that wraps up our Christmas Eve wine tasting spectacular, I hope you enjoyed the trip!  Still so much more to share on the wines, food and people of Argentina but I am getting backlogged with all of the other wines I have been wanting to share with you so I think I’ll come back to Argentina later on in the next few weeks.  My mother told me that she has enjoyed reading about my trip but is ready to read about wines that she can find around here.  Mother knows best!

(photo credits via Trout & Wine, Trip Advisor, f2-8)

I really thought I was going to be able to get through all of the Argentina pictures and stories this week, but alas, my internet was down at home this morning when I tried to upload the images I wanted to share!  Oh well…  Guess you’ll just have to wait until Monday.  In the meantime, let me share with you a funny little wine we tried this week, Zin Your Face.  As the name implies, this is a Zinfandel from Central Valley California.  The bottle had big bold letters reading, “Spicy, Jammy, Yummy.”  Sounded like a challenge to me to we picked up a bottle.  It cost $12.99 but we were at a small package store near our house that has a limited selection and higher prices than most other stores in the area, but it is literally within crawling distance from our house so we often just bite the bullet and stop here instead of driving further for a better deal.  I’d imagine you could find this bottle for closer to $10 if you looked around…  Anyway, so we tried it, and I feel it lived up to the bottle verbiage!  Huge cherry and raspberry flavors with that extra little spike of alcohol on the palate that Zins are known for.  Nice spice on the nose as well.  Pair it with bolder foods/cheeses so you don’t overpower what you’re eating with the strong flavors of the wine.  And as always, if you try it please let me know what you think!  Ok, off to focus on the new blizzard we’re having today, yeah!  Have a great weekend!!

(photo credit Zin Your Face)

So I’ve been sick pretty much 3 out of the 4 past weeks.  I am SO over this unshakable illness that keeps manifesting itself in different ways so that one type of medicine never quite manages to alleviate the symptoms.  Ugh.  Good thing today’s post is about my absolute favorite wine tour on our trip because otherwise I may not have been motivated to sit down and write through watery eyes, a stuffy nose and a horse-like cough.  Bodega Kaiken was just brilliant.  I had not heard of the wine prior to the winery tour, but now that I have tried it and LOVED it I have noticed it on a few wine lists at local restaurants!  Our guide was Tiffany, a French Canadian who has been living and working in Argentina for the past 7 years.  I loved how she would float between English, Spanish and her native French throughout the tour, perfect blend of languages for a wine expert  :)

Upon our arrival at the Bodega, we were shown into the amazing wine tasting pagoda overlooking the vineyards and the Andes mountains.

We started our tour in the vineyards where Tiffany explained the difference between the French and Italian growing systems.  The French plant in long rows running north to south so that as the sun rises and sets the grapes are given equal exposure ensuring more consistent growth and development.  An example of the French system is pictured below, the plants covered in hail shields to ward off the occasionally wacky Andes weather.

The Italian system is called the “Pergola” system, the vines are planted in square plots and grown up and then across to one another, creating a canopy or “pergola” above.  This system is considered flawed by some as the shade created by the pergola prevents all grapes from even sun exposure and it also increases the probability of diseased vines attacking their neighbors.  Doesn’t this image look like Italy?  I loved the view of the mountains, really spectacular.

We next moved on to the wine cellar to see where the wine was stored.

And of course the tasting  :)  We tried the Kaiken Rose (superb!  Sweet nose but smooth dry finish), the Malbec Reserve (delicious) and the Cabernet Sauvignon Ultra.  Again, to our surprise, the Cab was our favorite and not the Malbec!  Cherry and blackberry, soft tannins, this Cab was truly spectacular.  So good we have actually managed to save it, I can’t say the same for the majority of the case we ended up bringing home from our trip…

Kaiken now exports approximately 90% of its wines so it should be popping up all over North America soon if it’s not around already.  I highly recommend you try it, and then go visit the vineyard and take this delightful tour!

Today feels like a Monday.  Anyone agree?  Its was borderline impossible to get out of bed, all the while knowing that I would have to face icy, treacherous roads and poor drivers.  Ugh.  Well, at least I have a delightful story to tell you of our second stop on our wine tour, a lovely little place called Clos de Chacras.  We woke up bright and early on Christmas Eve and met our driver, Marcello, at our hotel at 10:00am.  One thing I love about Mendoza is how easy and cheap it is to arrange a private driver for the day to transport you from tasting to tasting.  These guys aren’t just drivers, they are historians and can tell you fascinating stories about the region.  So we get on the road just after 10:00 and arrived at Close de Chacras at approximately 10:03am.  It was just down the corner, a long winding driveway off the main road, but it felt a world away.   Our guide, Peter, was a really interesting guy.  He walked us through all 7 steps of the wine tasting process and let me tell you – I learned a LOT.  Plus I loved his accent, he was born and raised in Chacras de Coria but spent time working in Europe with wine professionals from Australia, very charming combination.  Peter had us taste three levels of wine, the Gran Estripe Malbec, Chacras de Coria Cabernet Sauvignon and the Cavas de Crianza blend.  Forget the fact that it was only 10 something in the morning – we were dizzy from how delicious the wines were!  To our surprise, we liked the Cabernet Sauvignon the best.  Well, I may have liked the blend the best but we selected the Cab to bring home because the Cavas de Crianza line was mucho dinero.  Anyway, enough talk, here are some pictures from this adorable boutique winery!

There wasn’t time for a tour so we went right into the wine tasting

Cheers, honeymoon win!

Old tower used to store water in the old days.

Tomorrow we are off to Bodega Kaiken, can’t wait!  See you all then…

Good morning!  We’re near white-out conditions up here in Beantown – AGAIN – but thankfully the memories of Argentina are warming my heart still after almost a month.  I hope you enjoyed the snapshots of Buenos Aires yesterday!  Today let’s move on to wine country, shall we?  First, I share with you our amazing hotel in the Chacras de Coria region of Mendoza, Casa Margot.  I use the term hotel loosely as there were actually only 2 rooms in the entire place!  Casa Margot was once the privatively owned home of eclectic Argentine artist Eliana Molinelli.  After Eliana’s passing the property was purchased by the owner of Bodega Margot, a small production wine and champagne* vineyard in the Mendoza region.  Casa Margot is now the wine house to the wine manufacturer and serves both as a front office for wine sales and as a luxurious, secluded retreat that is a perfect base for exploring the wine of the region.  The wines are amazing, two Malbecs (one classic, one reserve) and a Sauv blanc for still wines and a Blanc de Blanc and Blanc de Noir for bubblies.  The still wines are all from the line “Maula and the Misery Mouse,” an adorable theme centered around the tale of a fiendish black cat on the hunt.  And the bubblies, oh the bubblies…  The Blanc de Blanc came only in splits, of course we walked into our suite to a mini fridge PACKED with them.  Honeymoon win.  This 80% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin blend had a crisp, honeyed apple flavor.  However, the Blanc de Noir is what really got me.  The Blanc de Noir is a 50%-50% Chardonnay Syrah blend and was just stunning.  Our host Nicolas described the bubbles as, “lovely and persistent,” a great description and a just adorable way of saying it, don’t you think?  Who doesn’t love persistent bubbles in sparkling wine?  The food was unbelievable, 5 course dinners with wine pairings eaten in the garden by candle light, hors d’oeuvres, champagne cocktails and fireworks at midnight on Christmas Eve, we couldn’t have asked for anything more…  My only complaint is that the bodega does not export to the US!  So sad…  Apparently they do export small quantities to Spain so I will have to look for it on my next trip across the pond.  In the meantime, a few images to help you share the magic of this wonderful first stop on our wine touring adventures!

*I know, I know, it is sparkling wine grown outside of the Champagne region of France so it shouldn’t be called Champagne.  But this particular bubbly was established after the Treaty of Versailles so it never signed the agreement obligating it to NOT use the term champagne, so it’s valid in a way…

The entryway of the main house at Casa Margot

Our good friend, Bodega Margot Blanc de Noir sparkling wine.  Do you not adore the vintage ice bucket?  I really wanted to steal it but consdering there were only 2 other people in the whole hotel I don’t think I could have gotten away with it.  Plus the hubs says I’m not allowed to steal bar goods now that I’m married.  Good thing I got him so many pint glasses back in my single days…

Maula & the Misery Mouse – Bodega Margot’s house Malbec.  We had no idea there was a black cat theme at Casa Margot, we all know how I feel about black cats…

Oh, and did I mention there were actually black cats LIVING at the house?  Couldn’t be more perfect.  This was the newest arrival, a 3 week old kitten I named Gordita after her massive girth.

Champagne picnic by the pool on Christmas Day.  I asked for some sort of smal snack, maybe some crackers or nuts, and this is what they brought us.  Beyond spoiled, even at the smallest turns.

Hello, world!  After an absolutely CRAZY past four weeks I am SO excited to write my welcome-back post on More Than Merlot as a married lady!!  Let me tell you, marriage is VERY time consuming, I had no idea!  But I’m back, off my wedding diet (hurrah!), and ready to share all of my wedding, honeymoon and newlywed insanity.  I just have to begin with our honeymoon in Argentina as this is primarily a wine-related blog and Argentina is officially THE destination for wine-ohs and foodies alike.  There are so many things I want to share with you about this fantastic country.  Over the next week I’ll recap some of my favorite culinary and viticultural adventures, but first a couple of my favorite images from Buenos Aires to help set the stage for the trip…

Bubbly at Bobo Hotel, our amazing boutique hide-away in Palermo.  Loved, LOVED this hotel!  We stayed in both the Buenos Aires and Argentina suites and they were both amazing.

Customer praise written on empty wine bottles above the parilla at Don Julio.  Besides the ridiculously amazing steaks, amazingly cheap wine ($7 for a bottle of good Malbec, at a RESTAURANT!), and delightful ambiance, out favorite thing  about Don Julio was their amazing Provoleta appetizer.  Take a log of provolone cheese, cut a slice about an inch thick and sear it on the grill with chimichurri sauce.  Crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside, needless to say we went back several times during our trip.

Theater – turned – book store, El Ateneo Grand Splendid (also my new happy place).  Whenever I travel to Spanish speaking countries I always buy children’s books by local authors, I grabbed some good ones here for sure!

Japanese Gardens, the largest of its kind outside of Japan.  Huge koi ponds, pagodas, a complete departure from the surrounding city.  Great little retreat when the sun gets too  hot (As in it was 95+ degrees every day with 85% humidity.  Dang.   How I got my hair straight a couple of days I do not understand…)

And, ONLY because people have been asking, here is one quick shot from the wedding.  We’re getting our professional photos back soon but this is one of my favorite candids from our friends.  It already feels like a lifetime ago!  I’ll be back tomorrow with more on Malbec and married life, salud!