Happy Monday!  Oh my goodness, new favorite wine alert!  Last week I discovered Lulu B., a series of wines produced from the makers of Cupcake.  First of all, how adorable is the label?  When Monique told me that she liked the wine I knew I had to try it – especially at 3 for $25!  We grabbed the Pinot Grigio, the Cab and the Malbec.  Each wine is from a different country, Pinot Grigio from Italy, Malbec from Chile, Pinot Noir from France, and the Can and Chard from California.  Quite a tour de force!  They are all simple, easy to drink varietal wines.  My favorite so far is the Malbec, it is light and bright and perfect for sipping on the patio with cheese and my Kindle.  You should definitely try these out folks, great summer time wines!  Let me know what you think, cheers!

(photo credit:  LuluB.com)

Happy Friday everyone!  Today I want to share with you the much awaited details of my recent organic wine collaboration with my darling friend Nina!  When Nina approached me with the concept of an organic wine tasting I instantly loved the idea.  Why organic you ask?  Well, organic wine is made from grapes grown on organic farms, which means no chemicals, pesticides, herbicides or unnatural flavor enhancements.  It has greater health benefits, it has a reduced environmental impact, and it is delicious!  I had not had a lot of experience with organic wine and felt it was important to better educate myself.   I decided upon Bonterra, Frey and Parducci.  Bonterra and Frey are both organic and Parducci is sustainable.  I felt that even though Parducci didn’t quite fit the mold of what we originally set out to do, it was still created with noble intentions of being green and responsible so decided to let it play.  Now, each winery produces a variety of wines.  I selected the red house blend for all three.  That way the tasting would be more apples-to-apples.  It is hard to compare a Merlot from one winery to a Cab from another, right? They were even all from the same region, Mendocino County, CA!  So with an even playing field we dove into these bad boys and didn’t look back.  Let me tell you, I was impressed!  Here are our reviews:

Bonterra – Merlot (52%), Syrah (22%), Cab Sauv (20%) & Zinafandel (2%) – $10.99/bottle

Light tannin with a somewhat vegetal nose and a combination of stone fruit (from the Cab) and black olive (from the Merlot) on the palate.  A softer wine, didn’t pack as much of a punch as you would expect from a wine dominated by Merlot, Syrah & Cab.  But pleasant and easy to drink, good for sipping on its own.  I thought this was a good wine, but after seeing Bonterra wine all over the place I guess I was expecting more.  Granted, this is a table wine and not one of their pure varietal wines, so you should not expect it to be super well defined.  But of the three this is probably the one I would least likely buy again.

Frey – Carignane, Zinfandel & Syrah – $10.99/bottle

Lovely wine with bright, ripe fruits (from the Zin) and a touch of floral/herbal notes.  A nice hint of anise on the finish, unless you’re paring it with a flavorful food in which case you may not detect it.  Much rounder than the Bonterra, very smooth tannins.  This wine was great!  I had never tried Frey going in to the tasting but I am glad I did.  I would buy this wine again, it is soft and easy to drink.  I would most likely drink it on its own as with food I felt it got a little washed out.

Parducci – Zinfandel (39%), Syrah (26%), Cab Sauv (23%) & Carignane (12%) – $9.99/bottle

Pronounced, bold flavors.  The Zin really shines through, this wine clearly has the most pronounced alcohol of the three.  Paired well with the cheese plate we created, especially the pungent Camambert/Blue hybrid.  Big and beautiful – a wine after my own heart!  This was my favorite of the three.  Really held up against the food we were eating but super smooth and delightful on its own.  Love the Zin characteristics and I think the blend was done very well.  I will be buying this again for sure!  Definitely my favorite of the three.

This is totally one of those wines that you see all the time and think, “Really?  TRUCK?  That does not make me want to drink this wine.  It makes me think of dirt.”  So in hopes of discovering something new and fabulous I grabbed a bottle as part of a 3 for $25 deal.  And you know what?  It was pretty decent!  It was light but had a substantial amount of fruit.  If I hadn’t known better I may have thought I was drinking a merlot, that’s how much ripe berry I found.  I brought it to temperature with my wine chill drops and I think that made a big difference in taking the edge off, I would recommend you try this wine a little on the cooler side as well…  Great for a casual mid week dinner when I didn’t really know what I was going to pair with it.  At 3 for $25 I think Red Truck is right priced and I would definitely get this again if I wanted an easy drinking red for just hanging around the house.  A very pleasant surprise from a wine I affiliated with dirt, I must say!  :)

(Image via)

Hello all!  So I know I’ve blogged about 181 Merlot before, but apparently I’ve never blogged about it’s dear cousin 337 Cabernet Sauvignon!  Well, they just released their 2008 vintage and let me tell you – YUM.  The vines they use for 337 are clones of Bordeaux vines and they have taken remarkably well to the terroir of Lodi, California.  Dark berry flavors with balanced acidity and tannins, this is a great Cab.  We paired it with grilled veggies and an aged cheddar with cranberry pepper jelly and felt it held up superbly to the strong flavors.  But it is absolutely smooth enough to drink without a food pairing as well!  We grabbed this bottle as part of a 2 for $20 deal (another Monique suggestion, I love that woman).  Highly recommended!

(photo credit 337 Wine)

Last night we met up with some friends in town for supper.  The reservation wasn’t until 7:30 so we had some time to kill beforehand.  We headed over to Stella, an adorable bar/restaurant in the South End.  All decked out in chic Italian white, this is a great place to hang out and people watch.  We selected a bottle of J. Lohr Gamay.  Kind of random, I know, but you know how I feel about lesser-known varietals.  I couldn’t recall having a 100% Gamay wine before and I was very intrigued by the soft tannin and jammy flavor.  Tons of blackberry and raspberry.  There were strong alcohol notes on the finish (I know, all wines are alcohol, but some have more alcohol essence than others, it’s a real thing in the wine world, I swear!) and overall I really enjoyed the wine.

Well, you know what’s funny?  When I looked up the wine on the J. Lohr website, I discovered that it is actually NOT a Gamay but a Valdiguié!  I hadn’t even heard of the varietal so I didn’t think anything of the fact that it was printed on the label of the wine.  I guess I figured it was something to do with the vineyard.  But anyway, I looked it up and apparently the wine makers thought it was Gamay until U.C. Davis testers determined that it was actually Valdiguié, an even lesser-known varietal with roots in southwest France.  I guess the folks at Stella didn’t get the update, oh well!  Doesn’t change the fact that we really enjoyed the wine.  We also enjoyed the price, only $28 for the bottle!  And, of course, we  enjoyed the fried artichoke hearts in a caper-laden sauce that we nibbled on while we were waiting.  Yum.

I saw the most adorable picture of a friend’s baby on facebook the other day.  She is 7 months old and gnawing on a bottle of white wine – she clearly gets this from her father because her mother is lovely, not some crazed bottle-chewing fiend…  :)  Then I noticed that the bottle she was gnawing on was one of my favorite go-to wines, Ménage à Trois White from the Folie à Deux Winery in Napa.  Ménage à Trois is a blend and we ALL know how I feel about blends (read-LOVE).  This mix is a Chardonnay with Muscat and Chenin Blanc.  It has a mild sweetness that makes it super easy to drink by itself (honey, pear, yum) but enough acidity and citrus to hold its own against mild-moderate cheeses as well.  This would be great with a nice flaky fish or a margherita pizza too, softer dishes.

Folie à Deux Winery also produces a great red, aptly called, Ménage à Trois Red (PS – Ménage à Trois coming from the French “mix of three,” because they all have 3 grapes in the blend!).  The red is a blend of Zin (my current favorite varietal), Merlot and Cab.  This one has a little more bite to it, a little more spicy and in-your-face.  Holds up great against more powerful dishes, pretty much any foods you would normally pair with a single varietal wine of any of the three grapes.  These wines are relatively easy to find and will normally run you around $9-$11 a bottle.  So check it out and let me know what you think!  And happy 7 month-a-versary to the little lady who inspired this post, you’re truly a girl after my own heart!

(photo credit: Folie à Deux)

Wow, what a week.  I think the Jinx Fairy read my post from last Monday and decided that I had experienced far too much happiness in 2 days and accordingly made the subsequent 5 just miserable.  Only work wise, mind you, but a bad week at work always carries over into your personal life no matter how hard to try to separate the two.  So how does one cheer oneself up from the ensuing funk?  Well, with the help of a deposit from the US Treasury (owning a home and getting married are expensive, but at least we get a nice little tax return) I cheered myself up buy buying a TON of wine.  Two full cases plus a bunch of individual bottles (including a bottle of this ChocoVine that has been popping up all over the place, have you seen it?  I will review soon and give you the deets…).  After much deliberating we decided upon Liberty School Cab and Angeline Pinot Noir.  You may recall Angeline from my last post, we had a bottle of the reserve at L’Espalier and it was fabulous.  After finding the reserve for $15.99 I found the traditional for $9.99!  A little less rich but still mild tannins and nice fruit, a great wine for under $10.  And we got a great deal on the case at an cool $100 even.  Liberty School Cab is my new obsession.  We have seen it everywhere from $15.99-$10.99 a bottle but in my opinion it tastes like a $20 bottle.  Amazing blackberry and chocolate aromas, balanced tannins, smooth finish, this is one of the better Cabs I’ve tasted in a while.

We found it for $10.99 a bottle and grabbed a case for just $120.  California is really stepping up to the plate with these two, after many years of favoring imports I am starting to really come around to these bright, fresh styles.  I’ll still NEVER like the Lakers though, let’s not get crazy…  So if you can track down these wines I highly recommend them!

PS – It’s almost sangria season.  That.  Just.  Happened…

(Photo credits: Wine.com, Martin Ray Winery)

It’s really cold out again.  Last week I was wearing long sleeved tops sans jacket and this morning the weather map on the news was an entirely new shade of purple, boasting “feel’s like” temps in the single digits.  Whatever, I still love New England…  But the frigid temps do encourage me to spend less time outside and more time hunkered down with my kindle, my cat, and a nice glass of red.  Yesterday I had some time to kill before picking my husband up at the train station before dinner at my parents’ house.  I headed over to Legacy Place to do a little shopping.  After one store and approximatly 2 minutes outside in the cold I determined it would be a much better idea to head to Aquitane for a glass of wine than continue my wanderings.  It would keep me warm AND cap my spending at around $10 for one glass of wine, I could spend three times that in under 5 minutes at The Paper Source so this seemed like a great decision all around.  Aquitane is just so lovely.  Long marble bar, adorable little French bistro tables, and a really solid wine list.  I love the wine list because they have about a dozen red and a dozen white wines by the glass and maybe 3 times as many bottles.  Why do you need more wines by the glass?  Having one solid wine in each of the major varietals is the best way to go.  You give me five different Zins by the glass all within a $1 or $2 of each other in price and I will be overwhelmed.  Just give me the best option and leave it alone!  The Zin I tried was definitely a good option, it is called “Incredible Red,” by Peachy Canyon, a 2006 wine from Paso Robles, CA.  Smooth, spicy but not harsh.  Plus I found it online for anywhere from $9-$12 a bottle, so hopefully you’ll be able to track it down at a local wine store in the same price range!  Really nice Zin in a really nice place.  Thank you, Aquitane and Incredible Red, for making working on a holiday seem a little less terrible…

(Photo credit wine and beer lover)

Check this out!  the20 has launched a wine cask system, all you do is purchase the wood cask and then you get access to their wine cellar from which you can order bags of wine designed to fit in your cask and stay fresh way longer than an open bottle of wine.  If they shipping to Massachusetts I would totally check this out, but alas the California based company is only shipping to states on the west coast for the time being…   Thanks to my friend Jenna for passing along the article!

(photo credit the20)

Have I really never blogged about this wine? I mean, I know I haven’t actually purchased this wine in years but I can’t believe that I’ve never even mentioned it. Not even in a holiday gift guide, crazy!  And why, you ask, is this so crazy?  Well, because “Conundrum” is a consistently good wine that is relatively easy to find and at a slightly higher price point than what you would probably spend on yourself ($20-$25 range) it makes a great hostess gift or pairing for a special evening – like Valentine’s dinner!  Plus, I absolutely ADORE their website.  Instead of entering your age before getting access to the home page as many wine and spirit site require, Conundrum asks for your zip code and then displays interactive maps with the closest vendors who sell their wine.  They also have a forum where you can enter your latest “conundrum” and get feedback, great way to drive traffic to your site and get frequent users.  Anyway, back to the wine.  The hubs asked me to pick out wine for the dinner he prepared last night, the main attraction being tilapia in a creamy tomato sauce.  Well, I didn’t want anything too overbearing so Chard was out of the question.  I was unsure of a Sauv Blanc with the acidic tomato, I started thinking maybe a Viognier would work when it occurred to me that the perfect solution would be a blend!  Well, Conundrum is one of the best white blends around, a top secret mix of 12 different grapes from California.  I love it when I’m right.  The wine paired perfectly with the dish, a bit of citrus to balance the tomato but with a hint of sweetness to really make the sauce stand out.  Altogether light enough to not overpower the delicate fish at the center of the meal.  YEAH!!  Highly recommended, if you’re interested in finding it you can just check out their site!  As always, please make sure to let me know what you think.