Italian Wine Tasting!

The Italian wine tasting is coming up this Sunday people! K&L wine merchants has a vast array (yes, I am sick of the word plethora) of Italian wines for under $20, so I am going to try to hit the store before the week is done. Some prosecco would be nice, I think. I keep seeing bottles of it on special display at Trader Joe's for about $7. Alorie, a Cheapfunwines taster and reader who recently started her own blog from her new digs in Switzerland, served prosecco at her wedding and raves about its taste and affordability. So maybe we can start with some prosecco and move on to the Italian reds. More this weekend.

The Verdict on the Syrahs (continued)

Miss Erica Sips Syrah

We reviewed the first two Syrahs yesterday, so it's on to the rest that we tasted last Sunday. Most of our picks are from Australia, with a few exceptions. This is for no other reason than the fact that there are many Australian Syrahs. Odds are people are going to buy them. Oh yeah, if you are serving cheese, Gouda is good with Syrah. I only say this because I bought Camembert and garlic goat cheese for my tasting, neither of which go well with Syrah according to my wine and cheese companion book. Stupidly, I checked the book after I bought the cheese. Camembert is good with hard cider and the Chevre pairs with Sauvignon Blanc, FYI. I don't think my tasting guests noticed the faux pas.

And on to the Syrah, Shiraz, la te da....

Continue reading: "The Verdict on the Syrahs (continued)"

The Verdict on the Syrahs

Roshambo Syrah was one of our two winners (Here's a conga line of their wines)

OK. Here's the first few of six Syrahs our group tasted. A seventh was a rogue bottle of Zin, a 2002 Renwood Zinfandel, Sierra Foothills. We tasted it anyway. No one identified it as a Zin. So maybe it just didn't matter.

1) 2001 Roshambo Syrah, Dry Creek. $11.99
This was one of our two winners (I bought this one, which is vindication considering I bought the bottle everyone hated at the last tasting). I smelled earth and cat pee on this wine and a bit of white pepper. It tingled on the tongue and tasted of ripe fruit. John tasted cloves and some pepper. The wine opens to sweet raspberry jam, he says. Really good with goat cheese.

2) 2003 Melville Syrah, Santa Barbara. $18.99
A bit pricier and a wine that Marlo, a budding wine afficionado, really likes. This was a big wine. I wrote "it felt like someone hit me with a mallet" when I sipped it. I smelled oysters, something fishy, and burnt match. Marlo smelled alcohol (this wine has 15.4 percent alcohol), big fruit and jam. "Fishy smell," said Michael. "If I wanted a bottle of sweat I would have asked for it." To be fair, I went back to this wine after it opened and it tasted much better.

I'll post a couple more reviews tomorrow.

Que Syrah Syrah

What will be....a cliche! OK, so the second monthly tasting at chez CheapFunWines is a Syrah-fest. I picked Syrah for selfish reasons: because I like them!!! I like them because they are peppery and feisty and fruity and fun to drink. Again, we found TWO we all really loved. Two is turning out to be our magic number. When we tasted Cabs last month the group also agreed that two bottles were superior to the rest of the lot. Spooky.
This time, we tasted six Syrahs and one rogue Zin. Hey, how did a Zin slip into the Syrah tasting? Outta here!!!
Check the next blog for our results and some comments from the peanut gallery or enthusiastic but completely unprofessional tasters.

Who loves Cabernet Sauvignon? We DO!

The Cheapfunwines gang had a blast at our first monthly wine tasting. Aside from getting a bit tipsy, we all learned a bit more about why we love Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our group, which included a trained chef, a photographer, a computer programmer, a pharmacist, my retired neighbor and a handful of semi-boozy journalists, tasted 10 Cabernet Sauvignons from around the world that cost under $20.

We are no experts, just wine lovers on a mission to evolve our palates. Marlo had just went to a huge Zinfandel tasting here in San Francisco the day before my soiree so she was right up there with the descriptions.

Before we tasted we hid the labels on all 10. (This is good to do because I recall reading somewhere that women tend to buy more bottles of wines with blue labels...and people also tend to have preconceived notions about what a wine is supposed to taste like if it's a certain brand.) Thankfully, there weren't a lot of household names among the wines people brought. No Bogle, Ravenswood or Rodney Strongs among the pack, thank you.

After we finished trying all 10 bottles (eek!) some of us went back and tried the ones we were unsure of again. We found a few had opened up and improved. Others were still nice.

Continue reading: "Who loves Cabernet Sauvignon? We DO!"

Cabs Part Deux

Here are five more Cabernet Sauvignon's under $20 we tasted at the monthly wine tastings.

6) 2003 Pedroncelli, $14 Sonoma
A fruity, drinkable solid wine.
“Pleasant, mellow cherry,” writes John.
Aimee writes that this wine is fragrant, smells earthy and tastes of cherry/raspberry.
“Fruity and sweet,” Stef says. “It’s OK.”

7) 2003 Veramonte, Chile $7
I thought this wine had a sharp nose and was a bit acidic. A nice finish. “Meaty, gamey,” Marlo writes.
“Nice fuit,” says Aimee. Alorie tasted some licorice and pepper. John says this wine had a thin berry nose and a sweetness that disappearsand leaves tanins.

8) 2003 Ring Bolt, Australia, $15
I liked this red. In fact, we all liked this one.
I tasted some mint and big berries. John found this wine sour at first but said it was chocolately smooth when it opened up. Aimee found it well-balanced. Marlo liked it, too.

9) 2002 Castle Rock, Sonoma, $9. OK, we’re slowing down by this one. It’s hard to taste this many wines in a row John found it “tinny,” with some slight chocolate on the tongue. Marlo also tasted some chocolate in this wine and called it “dessert smooth.” The majority of us liked it. But who knows....we might have liked Boone's Farm at this point.
Speaking of Boone's Farm, these reviews crack me up. Even this wine has its fans, as loony as they might be.

10) 2002 Hawk Crest, Napa. $15
I liked this wine a lot more once it opened up. It’s dry and nicely balanced and fruity. Hawk Crest is made by the Stag's Leap folks. When I was younger Stag's Leap was the holy grail of wine to me, for some reason. I had just heard about how swanky it was among the dot com crowd. A friend got really angry when she had to split the bill for dinner and someone at the table had ordered a few bottles of the stuff. As a joke, I got her a bottle of Stag's Leap as an engagement present. I think I had Stag's Leap once, but cannot remember it so it might not have been all that memorable. Anyhow, back to Hawk Crest. I think we were all pretty tapped out by the time we got to this wine. It's hard on the average tongue to taste 10 wines in one night. By this time, our crackers and cheese were gone, the olives mere pits and the tortilla chips just crumbs in a bowl. It was time to call it a night.