Category Archives: Wine

Neither Mike nor I have been drinking much wine lately, so it was very deliberately that I opened this bottle of pinot noir to accompany dinner last night. We have the wine, we should be drinking it.
I don’t know how I obtained this bottle in the first place, but I’m definitely glad I did. Drinking it by itself, before dinner, this pinot noir was close to a perfect sipping wine. It had the right proportion of fruitiness to oak, a medium body that did not leave you looking for more, and a smooth finish. It tasted very balanced, with a limited amount of acidity. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for other bottles. This may very well be the first wine I have from Monterey county – yet another area I had dismissed as marginal to the California wine world – but I’ll definitely try to visit the winery if I’m ever in the area.
All this said, the wine didn’t go well with dinner. I made Braised Lamb Shanks with Coriander, Fennel, and Star Anise, an unusual tasting dish with bold pepper & fennel flavors, and this wine lost its smoothness, edge and oakiness in the face of such spice. I’m also not sure it’d stand up to other strong flavors. I think it’d be great with a chicken stew, some milanesas or fetuccini alfredo.

I got this Argentine wine at Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago. Being Argentinian, I’m always in the look for promising & cheap wines from my country. This wine is one of those perfectly drinkable, not challenging and yet not empty wines that occupy the middle of the road of the wine world. It’s a perfectly fine dinner wine, but not one you’d sip for pleasure alone.
It has a medium body and very light tanins. Flavors of dark cherries and blackberries, a dry fruitiness. It has a smooth finish and very light pepper.

During our trip to the wine country last month, we visited Cline Cellars, where we tried some very interesting wine. We generally liked them, so when I saw their 2006 Zinfandel at TJ’s (a wine we hadn’t tried), I figured it was worth $8 (or so). I think it is.
I like the wine. It’s not my favorite, but it’s nice. It’s full bodied and dry, with fruity undertones. There is some acidity and some bitterness, perhaps a bit too much of the latter for my taste. But all in all, a good wine for the price.

Every time I go to Argentina, I bring back a bottle of dulce de leche liqueur. I’m not big liqueur person, but dulce de leche liqueur is amazingly delicious.
Today I saw a couple of bottles of Dulseda Dulce de Leche liqueur in the bargain bin at Safeway – for $12 a bottle – and given that my last bottle has been finished several months, I decided to buy it. It turned out that $12 was a bargain, bottles of dulseda start at $20 online. It also turned out to be delicious. It’s made with rum, rather than whole alcohol, which makes it smooth and creamy, without a sharp alcoholic bent. I really enjoyed it and, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s only early afternoon, I’d have drank a whole glass. We need to return to Safeway, and I hope the other bottle is still there, so we can snatch it.

We had this wine last night at Rick & Anne’s restaurant in Berkeley. It was modestly priced at $28, and we all loved it – even I, who does not in general like Merlots. This one in particular had a full body, was quite fruity without being sweet, and it was very well balanced – a hearty wine. There was little acidity and no tannins I could discern. I checked and it’s about $16-19 online. Apparently the Safeway close to my house has the 2003 on sale for $15 – so, even though I promised never to buy wine at Safeway again, I may pick up a bottle next time I go there.

As I said before, I’m done buying wines at Safeway. But before that realization, I got a bottle of Firefly Ridge Pinot Gris, which was supposedly 40% or so off (I think I paid $8 or so). Of course, now I know that Safeway gives inflated regular prices to off-brand wines they get in bulk, to then discount them heavily. Scammers.
Anyway, I couldn’t find any information at all about Firefly Ridge winery online. And all I can tell from the bottle is that the grapes come from the Central Coast and the winery is in Livermore and Ripon.
Now, as to the wine. It was crisp, light but with some body to it, easy to drink and with hints of fruit. It was almost sweet and almost bitter, but not quite. Its acidity came forward when drank in conjunction with some broiled lamb chops. In all, not an unpleasant wine, but not particularly interesting. I’d drink it, unless there was a better choice, but I wouldn’t buy it again.
Mike, on the other hand, didn’t like it at all, and was concerned at how much we paid for it. Live and learn.

I tasted this wine at our friends Alistair & Suzanna’s last night – though I have a bottle of it at home which I bought at Trader Joe’s a few weeks back. I’m pretty sure that we bought a bottle of this same wine at the winery, many years ago, in our pre-kids days, so I thought it was a good bet to get it when I found it at TJ’s. It was.
The wine is not as full and sophisticated as the Fife Meritage we had enjoyed earlier in the evening – but it was similar in that it was unbelievably fruity. Indeed, there seemed to be fruit coming out of everywhere, and even though the wine wasn’t exactly sweet, it’s likely to be a good introductory red for people who see reds as being too dry. It had no tannins, little acidity and a medium body – it was well paired with the chicken apple sausages we had with it.
In all, I think I may get a couple of extra bottles. It seems like a good wine to take to friends’ houses, as it’s likely to be a crowd pleaser.
I don’t remember how much it was at TJ’s, but I think under $10.

I found this wine at Safeway last year for $15 off $32. I thought it was a very good deal, and though I didn’t know anything I about the wine, but I’m always willing to experiment. We finally opened it last night and I liked it a lot. It was extremely fruity, with low acids and only hints of tannins and oak. It was still full bodied, though, and just very tasty. I’d definitely buy it again, if I could find it. Alas, I imagine by now it’s all gone and it doesn’t like like Fife makes a meritage any more.

I bought this wine during a recent trip to the Gold Country in California. I loved most of the wines at that winery, but this one was one of my favorite ones. At $26 it was pretty expensive for me – but I did like it a lot.
We drank it a few nights ago along with a simple dinner of french bread, soft cheese, sorpressata, coppa and olive oil. It was, once again, very good, with a rich flavor, full body, soft tannins, and memories of dark berries. It was also succulent and buttery. Mike liked it too, but I don’t think as much as I did.
In all, one of my favorite wines.