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!

Happy Monday, everyone!  SO much to catch up on, so little time!  I promise to tell you all about the wine tasting with my sister and the food and fun at from wedding soon, but in the meantime, can you just LOOK at this picture of my cousin and his rock-star wife?  A beautiful day for a BEAUTIFUL couple, congrats again guys!!

Today is a happy day indeed!  My sister and her husband (eek! still so funny saying husband!) are coming home a week from tomorrow for our cousin’s wedding!!  So excited, it will be the first time the entire clan will be together since my sister’s beautiful wedding in May and I just can’t wait.  A few days ago I received an email from an old work colleague who recently discovered my blog.  She too has had a lot a fun family goings-on in the past years and now is the proud mama of a little boy!  Ever since her little bundle of joy came into the world, however, enjoying an occasional cocktail or glass of wine has taken a toll on her tummy.   I have definitely heard of this happening before (I fear for those around me if I go through something similar), but there is hope!  A lot of times a wine will make you feel sick or give you heartburn because of what you may have eaten (or not eaten) earlier in the day, or sometimes your mommy chemical make-up just doesn’t agree with a particular bottle!  While a lot of it is trial and error, I do have some suggestions to finding a wine that will do right by your body and your wallet:

• Acid is a BIG player in why certain wines will make your tummy tumble.  A trick to toning down the affect of acid in a wine (and this is just my opinion, not necessarily science) is chilling your wine before drinking.  This is why a lot of people can drink white wine more easily than red, because it is generally served at a lower temp!
• Sweeter wines are often a good fix for more sensitive stomachs.  Now, this does not mean that the wine itself has to be  a “sweet wine.”  I recently tried a great dry red from Layer Cake made with the Primitivo grape.  This grape is a lesser-known grape that tends to produce a wine with a great fruity flavor that hides some of the acid in other dry wines.  Then there are actual sweet wines like Jam Jar that would be great for a person who likes red wine but wants something more on the sugary side.  Balanced enough for a cheese plate or a rich dessert, or just sipping on its own!
• Wine that is aged longer will tend to loose some acidity and become more mellow, so you could try some older wines to see if that helps.   Because aged wines can often be more expensive (as they take longer to produce), you should stick with the classics like Merlot and Pinot Noir when you’re starting out as you can find good quality aged wines like these more readily.

Hope this helps, and if any mommy’s out there have further suggestions on overcoming this common affliction, please share!

Oh!  Also – Last night I purchased the first three bottles for my Merlot project, I’ll share review #1 with you tomorrow!  Now all I need to do is come up with a clever name for the adventure…

Feliz Cinco de Mayo everyone!

Sorry for another extended absence, after my Chicago trip (which, if you know my friend Kim, you will understand why I wasn’t able to post again that week) I returned home only to turn right back around to the airport for my darling sister’s wedding in Savannah!  First off, if you’ve never been to Savannah, you MUST go.  Such a charming little city, and a great social scene!  I almost resent Savannah for developing all these amazing new wine bars, roof deck lounges, trendy tapas bars and such – I don’t want any more excuses for my sister to delay moving home with her new husband!  But I digress…

SO, as we all know, I am kinda into wine.  And champagne.  ESPECIALLY at weddings.  When else do you have an excuse to drink as much bubbly as you want?  And the champagne at this wedding was really good.  Not too dry, not too sweet.  Could I tell you, for the life of me, what exactly it was that I was drinking?  Nope.  Could I even assure you that it was champagne, as opposed to prosecco, or cava, or the like?  No way.  So my question is this – we brides stress over every little detail of a wedding, but how much attention to the guests really pay?  Is it worth spending the extra dough to get Veuve for my big day, or will a discrete sparkler do?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

Oh, and by the way, how GORGEOUS is this bride?  Congrats again to the happy couple on a fantastic event!