Tuesday, July 13, 2010

fairbanks port

i think it was like $7...decision between it and the "sheffield" i believe for that price (safeway? foodland?). surprisingly not bad, but not a dessert on its own. eat with chocolate, the heavier the better (and the bitter). silts when left too long but still tastes good.

Friday, January 8, 2010

post #1

i drink enough wine that i figure i should start trying to remember them. once upon a time i bought and brought the rosemont shiraz for/to every present, party, dinner, blah blah blah...and that was about it. it was a wine that was always on sale because it had won an award, and i did enjoy it. vintage? never noticed.

from there, i explored shiraz's and, their synonymous...or...whatever the hell it is, syrah's. i think it's the same grape from different regions, learned once but quickly forgotten.

after that...went on an pretty random adventure of whatever's on sale at safeway or tamura's that has an interesting tag, review, or "rating"...which i've never figured out. fun, but never remembered any of them.

theeeen walks in "B" (since she's so fond of calling me "the other J", second to her brother, "J"), who'd been lucky enough to have indulged in many fine wines in her life and was very attentive to each subtle nuance of many of 'em. she and i went on many an adventure with wines (often with some sort of bloody red meat, yay!), but what i took from it first and foremost were the spanish wines. of note, tempranillo is one of my favorite, but more specifically, one they call a "crianza" which is usually aruond 85% tempranillo and the rest a heavier cabernet savignon to round it out (tempranillo has a bit of a bite to it, smoothed out well witht he body of the cab). yum. and for the first time i actually paid attention to this crazy thing called a "vintage"...tasting the same wine of different years. 2002 was spectacular (may have been before, i dunno, they got expensive before that : ), 2004 good as well (n ever did see a 2003), but something happened in 2005 that really did (and i tasted) make it SO much less impressive. 2006 alright, 7 and 8, only if it's cheap ; ) workin' on granache's too...haven't gotten a great feel for them.

drinking right now a 2008 colores del sol malbec (argentinian, maybe $12). had a few malbec's and they often taste very spicy to me with a bite i don't like. this one, even when it was just opened, SMELLED really good. smelled just a little fruity (which i rarely like), but given a little air, smoothed out very nicely. for the price and age, i like it. had it with a...stew? beef, choy sum, onions, huli huli sauce (i was out of shoyu, wtf), oyster sauce, garlic powder, and macadamia nut chili oil (um...YUM). the little bit of spice went SO well with this wine. i usually hate red wine with spicy foods, which is why i didn't add more spice to the food (i'd planned on drinking the wine), but that little bit of spice worked well. especially with the tiny hint of fruit. will have to explore malbec's more.

so here ends my first post on red wine :) expect there to be more to come as i tend to drink at least 1-2 bottles a week. may not hear about the ones i have outside of my house as i'll never remmber he names muchless the vintages...but i'll try!

*sip*