She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge (or wine)

This past summer, I made a trip to Greece. I tend to fall in love with things easily and it was of no surprise that I fell in love with the Greek wines. The wines are rich and potent, just like I like my wines..... and my men. I tasted several different house wines and find myself lingering still when I go to visit the liquor store in the Greek wines section.

One of our stops was to Minos Winery on the island of Crete. Even at 8 a.m, I was ready for wine tasting. One of my favorite things is cheap, well made wines and Minos had several options. I picked up this Medium - Sweet Table Wine for about eight euros. I tasted it tonight and it was just as delicious as I remembered and instantly took me back to the Mediterranean. I wish I had the kind of refined palate that I could tell you the different flavors in the wine, but years of killing my taste buds with hot sauce and super sour candy have limited my ability. But I can tell you that it's strong, jammy and delicious and that's all I need to know. I'm just upset I couldn't cram more of these bottles into my luggage (Although, I have a tiny bottle of Rose saved for later).

Food and Wine recently had a whole section dedicated to Greek food and Greek wines. I ended up tearing out the entire section of recipes and wines and added them on my to drink and to cook list. Seems I'm going to recreate the Greece experience in my kitchen and my glass for the next few months.

Anyone else have any knowledge of Greek wines? Do you have a wine that reminds you of a favorite place to travel? Let me know and I'll add it on my list!

Petite Petit

phew I'm so completely falling behind in my reviews. I guess it's a good thing that I haven't been drinking too much wine lately! Other wise it would be a lost cause. I purchased the Earthquake Zin at Michael and David vineyard and Miranda purchased the Petite Petit.

At the time (wines here are so good so I can see my faves changing w/ my mood) these were the two fave wines we tasted. (At that point in time I was more in a zin mood, if I were to choose right this second I would pick the petite.) This was a smooth, bold, lovely petite petit. We drank ours w/ take out chinese while catching up from not seeing each other in months. The bottle disappeared quickly, but every drop was thoroughly enjoyed. I would definitely get this again. Not only is the label fun but it has an awesome cork.

off to California

Tomorrow I'm off to the land of wine, redwoods, beautiful coast line, and Miranda...California. By mid afternoon tomorrow we'll be visiting wineries in Lodi sampling lots of wines. Then we'll drive up the California coast line into Northern California to see the redwoods. It's supposed to be a gorgeous drive and I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm sure we'll find plenty of wines to sample and drink along the way!

cheers!

the best kind of research

I leave for California in 23 days! And in preparing for our trip Miranda and I have been looking up area attractions that we want to see and visit. Our plan is, the day I fly in to visit Lodi and taste some wines. I mentioned before last summer when we visited her we stopped in Lodi which brought on my 6 month Zinfandel obsession. I think I'm ready to bring it back! Then the next morning we start our road trip North up route 1 along the beautiful coastline.

Today's research is to narrow down which vineyards to visit that first day. We can't get slobbery drunk since the next day will be full of driving narrow windy roads and attempting to look at the scenery. So M sent me this list of links and I'm to narrow it down to 6ish. Has anyone out there been to any of these? Any must see ones?

1) https://www.abundancevineyards.com/
2) http://www.bergholdvineyards.com/
3) http://www.macchiawines.com/macchia/index.jsp - Love the names of the wines
4) http://www.oakridgewinery.com/ - Look how cool that tasting room looks
5) http://www.dartwines.com/
6) http://www.e2familywinery.com/
7) http://www.harmonywynelands.com/index.cfm?id=77802&fuseaction=browse&pageid=1
8) http://www.stamantwine.com/
9) http://www.vrwinery.com/
10) http://www.vinoconbrio.com/conbrio/index.jsp
11) http://www.jgwinery.com/

Shawnee Hills Wine Trail

Last weekend Chris and our friend CP rented a cabin in southern Illinois with the intention of hiking and hitting up the Shawnee Hills wine trail. Chris and I were down there last year and stopped by two of the wineries and had a blast. This year we were ready to taste some wine.

Illinois wines tend to be very sweet. We can't grow the same grapes that grow in California and other prime wine areas. So vineyards make do with what will grow. There are some grapes, the Chambourcin, and the Norton grapes that will grow in IL. And when a vineyard knows what it's doing great dry wines can be created. I prefer the Chambourcin wines to the Nortons. The Norton wines are very strong, bold, and dry. They would be lovely with a steak dinner. Chambourcins done well are smoother than the Norton's that I've tried. They still have a nice bold, fruity, dry flavor, just not as much bite to it. This weekend I sampled some combination wines of the two that were really wonderful as well.

There are some great wineries in southern Illinois and I found that the ones I liked it wasn't just good wine, they had great service as well. It made a huge difference when the bartender was friendly, accommodating, and really knew their wines. CP is a sweet wine drinker where as I'm a dry...if the bartender could wait on us both and recommend separates to us both it was really a good place. Two places turned out to be our faves, SkyView vineyard and Alto vineyards. Both had quality bartenders, glorious wines, a comfortable atmosphere, and didn't charge for tastings! All in all we tasted at 8 wineries, purchased 12 bottles each, each brought home 10 bottles, with for me 7 bought from our two favorite places.

My wine racks are now stocked. I'll have plenty to review over the next few weeks. And I'm really looking forward to enjoying some of the wines that I only just got a taste of over the weekend. And no I didn't just buy dry reds. I did really well mixing it up with some semi sweet whites for the upcoming spring nights.