two passions margaret river 2008 chardonnay

Produced by the Wildberry Estate in Australia. I haven't dabbled much in Australian wines, although I've had a few New Zealand ones, all of which are red. This is the first Chardonnay I've had in a while. I chose it exclusively based on the pretty label and the price $15. It also had a wine spectator sign next to the price saying it received 91 points but that was more icing on the cake.

C and I drank this together, sipping on it after R went to bed after the big snow storm. I had even chilled in in a giant pile of snow outside. I did not care for this wine. I thought it tasted like really old apple juice. Which then reminded me that that's what I've thought of other Chardonnays. Maybe that is the draw people have to this variety, or I just haven't had a good one yet. I didn't get any complex flavors or even any oak. C liked it alright and finished the bottle. I give this 2 stars.

I'm looking for suggestions/recommendations for a good chardonnay? Anyone have any faves? Or how about some good Australian wines? I'm always looking to add to my list of to drinks!

Dry Creek Fume Blanc

It's been a while now since I tried this wine. I had high hopes for it, maybe they were too high. When first opened I found it had quite a bite to it. After letting the glass sit for a few minutes that seemed to mellow out a bit. I could taste a slight fruity quality to it but it was pretty hidden behind that bite. I corked the bottle and stuck it in the fridge a bit disappointed.

A couple days later I came back to the bottle to finish her off. Like the last bottle I found that the fruitiness in the wine was a lot stronger 2-3 days after uncorking. I enjoyed it much more this time around. I did some quick research about letting white wines breath or decant and mostly came up with the result that they don't need it. Although apparently some people will decant whites. This is the first I've come across that benefited from a little air. Has any one else come across the need to decant white wines? or have any opinions on it?
In general this wine was ok. Even after a few days it's not a great wine but a good one for the price which was under $15.

Dry Creek Fume Blanc

A week and a half ago my inlaws came to town to visit us and spend some time with R. The plan was to go to the art fair in town and eat dinner there. Unfortunately it rained and the baby was quite grouchy. Instead the guys went shopping for grub and booze. They came home with lovely ribeye steaks, potatoes, some octoberfest beers, and my FIL bought Dry Creek Fume Blanc for my MIL. She opened it and had a glass. I opted for finishing off a bottle of red I had laying around.
Two or three days later we found the opened bottle in the fridge and Chris and I polished it off. It was good. Three day old wine and it was very yummy! Just the right amount of fruityness. I have not been in the mood for whites, mostly b/c the weather is chilly, it's prime red wine time. But I am glad this was left over in my fridge. My next outing to the booze store I'll pick up a bottle of this so that I can do a proper review on how the wine tastes fresh.

My Dirty Little Secret

I have a secret to share. Sometimes I need a break from the delicious, powerful Zins and Cabs that sustain my wine drinking existence. And I do that with some of the sweetest, delicious dessert type wines that I can find. I went to visit St. Supery winery about six months ago and after a tasting fell in love with their Moscato wine. It's fruity (with hints of apricot and pear) and so smooth, I tend to drink it like it's liquid candy.

Imagine my joy then when I found out that they have a Moscato only wine club (plus joining the club meant our tastings that day were free, it's like I saved money - as if I need additional encouragement). That's eight delicious bottles of Moscato a year.

A couple of weekends ago St. Supery had a great event for their wine club members. They brought in a traveling wood burning oven and served us lunch and wine. The lunch was a variety of different wood burning oven pizzas and salad and glasses of delicious cabs and chardonnays. It was really the perfect day.

So, does anyone else have a wine drinking guilty pleasure?

Three Stones Sauvignon Blanc

While doing some last minute prepping for this past weekends art show I had a couple friends over to keep me company and this was the bottle of wine they brought. I'd seen it before b/c I thought it was a pretty label. It is also the wine of the month at our local liquor store. It's about a $10 wine and was definitely on my list to try.

We sipped this while nibbling on cheese and crackers with some cut up fruit. It was light and summery. Had a nice full fruity flavor with out being overly sweet. Sauv blancs can really be quite tastey and a wonderful alternative to pinot grigio (which is my standby when I want a light white wine.) I would definitely buy a bottle of this to bring to someone's house or sip out on the deck in the summer sun.

Hey Mambo, swanky white

The heat of summer has set in and the last time I was at my fave wine store I was browsing the whites. I stumbled across this fun bottle name which immediately made me start singing the Rosemary Clooney song. So I picked up a the bottle and read the back of the label. It's a description of a lady in a dark bar/restaurant. And toward the end of the ladies description it implies that the wine tastes as good as she looks. I was sold. My only dilemma was to choose between the swanky white or the sultry red. I went w/ swanky.

The wine was surprisingly good. I was expecting sort of an eh flavor. California white wine can go either way. I could taste a light fruity flavor which was nice in the hot weather. We drank it during wine night while watching TV and catching up. I would get this again for a gift or to bring to a party. And I definitely plan to try the sultry red.

Gabbiano Pino Grigio

A few years back Castello Di Gabbiano chianti and pino grigio's were one of my go to wines. It still is for chianti but I haven't had chianti in a long time. I'll have to pick some up soon. It's prime season for pino grigio so I picked up a bottle. The only reason that I'd stopped buying this brand was two back to back bottles that were ruined w/ cork rot. Which is bascially when the corks get mouldy and the wonderful wine tastes like acid/vinegar. This is where the move toward plastic corks is becoming popular but that's a whole nother post in the works. Anyway after experimenting w/ other pino grigio's I soon forgot about Gabbiano.

Now several years later I remembered it while brainstorming good white wines I'd had before. I picked up a bottle and opened it over the weekend. It was perfect after a day at an art fair in pleasant weather. It was light and refreshing. It would have been perfect with some cheese and crackers. I would definitely pick up a bottle of this again.

Vino de España: Mederaño

Today, I would like to recommend a white wine. In fact, it is one of my favourite white wines. It is from Spain and great for mild summer nights. The brand Freixenet is well-known for its high-quality sparkling wines. However, this wine from the same brand is even a little bit cheaper than the sparkling wines. A bottle of Freixenet Mederaño is about 4 Euros. What I like about this wine is that it is quite refreshing, just like a white wine should be. Since, I am not a conoisseur of wines, I will translate the description of the German Freixenet Mederaño website about this wine for you. It says:

Fiery fizzy temperament
Mederaño shines stray yellow in the light. After the first sip, you will be surprised by its fizzy-fresh attack. Its grapefruit taste will remain on your palate for a long time [nina: I would never have thought it tastes like grapefruit BTW]. At the same time,it tastes fruity and has a plesant ratio of sweetness and sourness [nina: a wonderful description, total agreement on my side]. Enjoy this fresh, light white wine - just without many words.
These flavours tickle the nose
A display of fireworks of fruity flavours: freshly spicy scent of pear, banana, a little bit of white pepper and mirabelle [nina: so, no grapefruit anymore? These fruit comparisons do meet with my approval :) ].
Sommelier recommendation
Highly recommended as a soloist. It goes well with light meals like fish, poultry or salads like tomatoe-mozzarella.

Mmmh, tomatoe-mozzarella salad and pesto! I can imagine that very well now. :)
Watch out for this wine or brand. It seems like you can buy Freixenet wines, at least the sparkling wines, in the U.S., too. Look here. I can only recommend those as well!

*edit* Listening to the Desperado Soundtrack goes also well with the wine! :)

Kaleidoscope White Wine

Kaleidoscope white table wine was another one of those bottles purchased b/c of the label. I feel for good reason, b/c this is a really pretty bottle! Unfortunately, the wine was kinda eh. It was ok, it was drinkable, and inexpensive ($10). I'd drink it again if it was given to me as a gift or if someone else purchased it b/c of the pretty label. I probably won't buy it again.

I couldn't find a link to the vineyard that produces this wine. I'd be curious to see what grapes were used and it that would explain it's "ehness" to me. To me it was a white wine trying to be dry or semi sweet, but was just too fruity and sweet for my taste.

In searching for the vineyard's website I found the designer responsible for the label. Check him out here, I also borrowed the pic from him. Bravo on the label, you officially sold at least one bottle of this companies wine!

Vignoles

One of the last bottles to open from the So. IL trip was our favorite of the entire trip. We actually purchased two of these and had an entire bottle while down there on the deck above a lake w/ the vines just beyond while listening to live music and being attacked by cheese craving cats. Yes there was a cheese craving cat there and it was determined.
I brought this bottle up to Chicago for Mom's birthday and we enjoyed it on her deck, w/ Gram, while taking pictures of non attacking birds. It was just as good as I was building it up to be in my head.
The vignoles grape is a hybrid grape made from a cross between Seibel and Pinot de corton. The wine is light and fruity and yet not sweet at all. It didn't have the dry oaky after flavor either. I can drink like juice but it doesn't really taste like juice. It's a beautiful champagne color that was gorgeous in the sun. I took it's picture a lot. This is a must try if you are at StarView and if you're in So. IL you must try StarView!
While up in Chi-town we stopped by World Market to diversify our wine stock. So soon we'll get out of the IL wines and start trying new flavors from all over.

Wiener Dog White

Some times it's all in the name. That's what sold me on this bottle, that and I was already buying a bunch from Alto anyway. The label does the name justice and I bought it with the intentions of sharing the fun w/ friends on a warm spring day.

Yesterday was the perfect day. Misty and Trina came over to watch Lost and it was our first real 60 something day with the sun out. A perfect day for some wiener dog wine. This wine was more of an impulse buy, an ok wine compared to the reds we were sampling at Alto. For a semi sweet Illinois wine this was pretty good. It is a blend of three Illinois grapes, Vignoles, Villard, and Chardonel. It has the fruity flavors but without the over whelming sweet, and yet it lacks the oaky dryness of a true dry white wine.

Thumbs up to this wine and it's fun label. Too bad they don't have any fat cat reds!

2007 Chardonel

Last night we celebrated Chris's website going live, and to do that I cooked up a lobster dinner and we opened up a bottle of wine from our recent adventure.

The wine is the 2007 Chardonel from the StarView vineyard on the Shawnee Hills wine trail. As said before StarView was one of our faves. Even the labels, which were designed by a local artist were our favorites!

Chardonel is a dry white wine similar to a nice chardonnay, although it doesn't have that dry after bite to it. That's because the Chardonel grape is a hybrid of the chardonnay grape and a grape called the seyval. Seyval grapes are also grown in the So IL region.

We devoured this bottle with our dinner and supplemented with another wine that was already open and a few weeks old. I won't review that one b/c I think it was past it's prime. The Chardonel was delicious, it was dry enough for the chilly weather and yet springy enough that it was hard not to guzzle. I'd buy this again, and recommend dry white wine lovers to at least taste it if they're near the winery.

La Crema 2007 Chardonnay

I like almost all wines, but normally chardonnay is not my favorite. I don't buy it often and so I bet I miss out on a lot of good finds like this one. In January we had some friends over to drink wine and nibble on cheese and crackers. One couple brought this La Crema 2007 Chardonnay from the Sonoma Coast that she'd been enjoying. It was barely chilled when we opened it and that didn't matter, it was a really nice chardonnay. I could drink an entire glass in a blink.
My friend recommended it with spicy foods. She had first tried it with a dinner of spicy shrimp and said it was really great. This is definitely on my need to try again list.

Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio

Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio is my stand by favorite pinot grigio. I know it'll be a good bottle of pinot. And this is what we had for our Valentine's dinner. We ordered carry out sushi and wanted a nice light white wine. It's a bit pricey, $22 here in P-town, but for a special night it's worth the splurge. We bought a 2007 bottle and as always it was tasty. Pinot Grigio is about the sweetest I like to go in wine any more. This one is definitely not too sweet. There is a nice fruity flavor which brings a sweetness. But it's not like the sugary sweet that some wines can have.