Sketchbook Pinot Noir

A very light tasting red...very good, especially after the third glass :)

Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc

Fabulous, tart, grapefruit! This is one of my favorites.

Harvest Select Riesling

Sweeter than the usual Riesling...very good with the cookies that I baked!!

Barnard & Griffin Riesling

One of my favorites

Silver Oak 2005

PA has this on sale for half the price it sells for anywhere else...maybe cause something is wrong with it? Tasted a little "off". It wasn't as velvety as I hope for.

2009 Beaujolais

Needed a heavy meal to drink with this...too heavy for apps

Viognier

Maybe I was just in the mood for something mellow...this was too perky for me tonight...maybe tomorrow.

Little Penguin Riesling

Not bad at all...not too sour and worked well with dinner...oh wait! I didn't have dinner. Oh well, there are enough calories in two glasses to get me through until my morning pecan roll!

More of a summer wine...

This Fume Blanc was good but may have been a whole lot better with a really light dinner (salad maybe) or a fresh fruit dessert eaten outside in the sun.

Cab and Brownies

I have a habit of picking wine based on how cute the label is...rings true for this one! I enjoyed a glass (or two) of this with my homemade Starbucks Mocha VIA Brownies...very nice dinner!

Tastes like Lite Beer...only in wine

Razzleberry Riesling

For a wine that I bought in the gift shop at Hueston Woods State Park, it wasn't half bad. This wine had a great light taste and just a touch of berries. It only took me a day and a half to polish off the bottle :)

SOAVE

I had to drink this wine - the bottle was too cool to pass up! Mike bought this for our anniversary and it was a nice, light white. Like a Riesling but not so sweet. Very enjoyable...as you can tell from the empty bottle!

Dr Loosen Riesling

Nice and sweet - first has this at the Burgundy Room in Columbus with Mussels.

Brazin 2007

They say tart fruits and plum with vanilla, mocha and pepper. I got the everything but the plums. We had this with Garlic Butter Grilled Chicken, Spiced Apples, Cheddar Mashed Potatoes and Bacon Tomato Ranch Pasta Salad...yep, we ate too much!

Opala - "some sorta white wine"

Some White Wine…as I drink this I can’t even tell you what wine it is. I saw the bottle across the store and loved the label, so into the cart it went. Every month or so I take the kids to Whole Foods and let them pick anything they want to try: goat cheese, gelato, pomegranate, and such. After the cart was stocked, I headed to the wine section for my favorite Conundrum and saw this cute bottle across the way…and on sale, so why the heck not! The next day, with a counter full of leftover flank, pineapple salsa and oodles of cheeses I cracked the cute labeled bottle. Peachy. Citrusy. Light. Quite nice.

Family Weekend - Yummy Wines

Family Weekend - Yucky Wines

I picked it, I opened it, I tasted it....I pitched it! Oh so yeast-y!

Brother brought this one...cool label, looks old and vintage, tastes like mildew!

Olympic Cellars - My Sweet Syrah 2007

My Sweet Syrah

This bottle was a present from my parents. I believe this was the same wine that they enjoyed while it rained in the northwest, eating pretzels dipped in fudge sauce. Well, after a LONG day at work I decided to try a glass to help relax the stress a bit. Now, because of my stressful day I didn’t really feel like “cooking” so the kids and I dined on waffles and bacon. How did My Sweet Syrah fit into this breakfast bonanza? Sweetly! It did not have dark taste of cherry or a peppery flavor that I was expecting. A sweet silky taste that went well with the syrup on the waffles and even complimented the salty in the bacon. Onto glass number two after the kids went to bed was shared with a dark chocolate brownie, and the pair was heavenly! And even more heavenly? These brownies! Sugar Daddy’s brownies at www.sugardaddys.com are AMAZING! The bag o’ brownies that I have (and won’t have for long) are “Pocket Change”. What? Well, this place cuts the brownies into little circles: blondies and brownies. What on earth are you going to with all of the pieces that are left? Well, you are gonna throw ‘em in a bag and sell them - “ Crazy Awesome!

Olympic Cellars, Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

EASTER 2010

The Olympic Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, we could just call this the Easter wine, the Easter 2010 bottle. My dad opened this bottle as we sat down to Easter Brunch around the same dining room table that we share all of our big family holiday meals. Most of these meals share the cherry wood space with a bottle or two or three of various wines. My mom and I may start out with a chilled white and move to a red. The men may start with beer, moving to wine only to end with bourbon or whiskey. But on this particular Easter of 2010, we opened the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon after a church service and egg hunting to enjoy with our usual Easter fare: ham with pierogies and onions. The table was full of many other items, whole baked sweet potatoes, asparagus, spaghetti squash and a cherry cheesecake pie, but ham and the homemade pierogies from Pittsburgh are a “must have”.

After having only one glass at the Easter meal, I couldn’t let the remaining bottle go to waste! Heavens no! The cab went so well hours earlier with hot out-of-the-oven ham that I just had to see how it could possible taste with leftover, cold ham. Well, I am happy to report that the ham and the wine paired splendidly in the evening air on the back patio. It also went quite well with the chocolate truffle egg that was given to us by some neighbors with a loaf of Paska (freshly blessed)…so well that the bottle was empty by sunset.

...as it was in the beginning...

So, I decided to start this blog to document the wine that I drink, my likes and dislikes, the parings that I come up with - strange, workable or complete failures...

I wasn't ever really a wine drinker. Well, I wasn't an expensive wine drinker. My wine experience, not that I have been drinking that long, because I am not that old (chuckling to myself), consisted of the $9.99 bottles that I bought on sale at the grocery store. You know which I mean, the good, solid Beringer's or Fetzer's. Also, I never strayed from the whites or blush wines. I always felt that the red tasted like nail polish remover. On occasion, I even put an ice cube or two in my White Zin...gasping now at the thought.

As my tastes evolved...and I mean evolved in the sense that as an adult I now like spinach, mushrooms and salmon instead of fast food, chicken tenders and lite beer. Being in the "food business" and have been forced across new foods and new flavors that have only broadened my culinary horizons. The same has occur ed for wine, mostly beginning with "Oh, that label looks cute" but leading into being daring enough to take on suggestions from friends and neighbors. Even my parents have shared their findings from afar...well, California, Washington and such, but still! From dark cherries to chocolate, who would have known that wine had those such tastes if Dad hadn't said, "Try this and tell me what you taste."

So, from cute labels to expensive gifts to local wineries, I am going to "sacrifice" whatever it takes to drink, savor, and write about my wine experiences. I would like to say that I am going to have to dig deep to commit to this, but that would just be lying and well, lying isn't nice (so says my mom). Enjoy!