Days Off – Road Trip!

One of our guilty pleasures is a super delicious mac & cheese ‘recipe’ from Sam the Cooking Guy.  Earlier this week, as I was adding in the blue cheese, onions and bacon for this dish, I wondered what wine would go well with it ~ needed something not too strong, but strong enough to stand up to the blue cheese.  That’s when “Stan & Barbara” came to mind!

We discovered the fun-labeled “Days Off” wine while visiting the Andrew Murray tasting room in Los Olivos, CA earlier this year.  We very much enjoyed the dessert wine, First Kiss. Tonight, it was time to pop open (uh, unscrew) and try another one from the limited collection, Road Trip. 

Road Trip is a super-Tuscan inspired red wine blended with 80% Sangiovese, 10% Syrah, and 10% Cabernet.  This is a heavier red, without being overly bold.  It opened with dark fruits (think raspberry and black cherry), and a slight hint of spice, with solid but not overpowering tannins.  While this wine would definitely be drinkable from ingredients to dessert, we let it breathe a little and enjoyed every drop of it alongside the sinfully delicious mac & cheese! 

Unfortunately, it appears it may be very difficult to get your hands on a bottle of Road Trip.  Only 30 cases were produced.  However, you should check out some of Stan & Barbara’s other “Days Off” adventures.  All are very well priced, especially for limited production, and delicious wines!

Great Deals on Great Wines ~ BevMo Wine Sale

It’s time again for the BevMo 5-cent sale ~ buy one wine, get the second for 5 cents.  This sale is available for ClubBev members ~ purchase one bottle at regular price, and get second of same bottle for only 5 cents.  While the sale applies to select wines, there are over 200 to choose from.  When this limited time sale comes around, we are frequently asked for recommendations of what to buy.  There are so many great wines included, you can hardly go wrong with any pick.  But, if you are really stuck… here are three we’ve enjoyed ~ all with price points of $19.99

Bridlewood Syrah Reserve '06

We discovered Bridlewood earlier this year from a recommendation of a friend.  While visiting the winery, we had the opportunity to taste the Syrah Reserve.  This wine has a sweeter nose, with a touch of earthiness.  It is a full bodied wine, with soft, but powerful tannins.  It has pinot noir-like qualities, but carries the punch of a true syrah.  Interesting, and very enjoyable. 

Lake Sonoma Zinfandel '08

In 2010, one of our favorite stops during our annual trip to Napa and Sonoma was Valley of the Moon.  While there we also had the opportunity to taste Lake Sonoma wines as well.  The zinfandel is a complex wine from start to finish, with abundance of ripe raspberry & strawberry flavors, enhanced with subtle notes of smoke, white pepper and a touch of vanilla.   Very enjoyable ~ especially for the price!

Wattle Creek Triple Play Red '06

Wattle Creek is one of our favorite wineries ~ we especially enjoy their red wines.  The Triple Play is a versatile, big red wine.  It’s a blend that is mostly a Syrah with some unique characteristics.  It is what I call an ‘ingredients to dessert’ kind of wine ~ enjoy on its own while you cook and with dinner.  For more of a review, read 2006 Wattle Creek Triple Play

BevMo is running a fun promotion along with the sale called the 2 Bottle Challenge.  Here’s how it works:

• grab your wine and enjoy each bottle in two completely different ways, capture with pictures
• upload your photos to facebook.com/bevmo
• check out the other photos posted and vote for your favorite

Sounds like fun ~ we will be playing along… and hope you do, too!  If BevMo is not in your area ~ you can still play along with us ~ share your photos and tell us a little about the wine on facebook.com/sharethebottle. 

BevMo 5 cent sale runs 9/14-10/24. 

A little adventure thanks to pizza and wine

It's always fun to turn the pursuit of wine into an adventure. This one stars some great wine, our favorite pizza, and a piece of furniture we had been searching for since January.

Our friends at San Pasqual Winery recently shared via Twitter that their Monte Soledad Spanish blend would be a perfect pairing with pizza. We're huge fans of pizza and wine, so we decided to pick up a bottle for our next pizza night. (See our posts on Robert Renzoni Sangiovese and pizza or Consentino Sangiovese and pizza for more pizza and wine pairings.)

Last Friday, we both got a craving for pizza so we stopped by San Pasqual's tasting room in La Mesa to buy a bottle of their 2003 Monte Soledad. At $12.50 per bottle, this wine is a steal! It's a blend of Tempranillo, Granacha, Barbera, and Cabernet Sauvignon that tastes a lot like dark fruit and, well, pizza. 

Wine in hand, we were strolling back to our car when a furniture stored called Mostly Mission caught our eye. We had been looking for a small table to put in our entry way and they had some promising pieces displayed in their window. The store's name reveals their primary focus, but they also sell some very unique items too.

One that jumped out at us was a bistro table made from an old wine barrel. The look and dimensions were perfect for an odd-shaped space in our entry way. We had been searching for a table like this since last January when we moved out an old piece of furniture. Our search was finally over!

Later that night, we opened the Monte Soledad and thoroughly enjoyed it with a Round Table King Arthur Supreme. The dark grapes blended perfectly with the pizza's meaty, salty flavors to create an incredible pairing. Both soon disappeared, but not before we raised a glass to finding our new entry way table!

Two Red Wine Finds

We recently discovered two new red wines, representing both ends of the spectrum ~ a high-end Cab, and an affordable Rhône.  If you happen to see either of these on a wine list, give them a try!

DeBeikes Oakville Estate Cabernet Sauvignon ($100)

100% Cab

This wine had a surprisingly spicy nose for a cab sav, but on the mouth its identity was very clear. It was very structured throughout, bold with a strong finish that didn’t linger too long. It was quite enjoyable on its own, but would go excellent with a hearty dish – bring on the steak! Check out this video review of the wine by wine-street.com

You can purchase the wine directly from the winery for $100 (plus shipping & tax). If you are in San Diego, check out Mosaic Wine Bar where you can pick up a bottle at the bargain price of about $78 (does not qualify for 5 cent sale). 

2010 Montirius "Le Cadet" ($10) 

50% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 10% Cinsault, 10% Merlot

We discovered this classic Rhône wine while dining at The Smoking Goat (awesome!) in San Diego. The nose was full berry with a hint of white pepper. The berry continued through as the earthiness developed in taste.  It has well balanced acidity. A very versatile wine ~ great pick for dining out as it works with a variety of options. We enjoyed with our spicy red snapper and grilled pork chop meals.  What makes this wine even more appealing is the price tag. The average retail price is about $10. The difficult part is finding it!  It looks like the best bet for purchase is online. 

Cheers!

Dessert Wine Discovery~Sweet as a “First Kiss”

We discovered Andrew Murray Vineyards (AMV) tasting room in downtown Los Olivos on our recent tour of California wine regions. As we walked in, my eye was drawn to a series of wines with whimsical labels with two people doing various fun activities. We quickly learned the wines are a special label for AMV called “Days Off”, dedicated to making wines from non-Rhone varieties (the AMV label specializes in Rhone varieties). Production is very limited and are available exclusively in the Los Olivos tasting room, or online. 

Those fun people on the label are “Stan & Barbara”, and each of the labels illustrates them spending their “Days Off” together. The labels usually illustrate them on romantic adventures, with a hint of nostalgia to remind us of simpler times when “we all worked less and enjoyed life more”. 

We had the opportunity to taste the ’09 “Lake Day”, which is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc (45%), Chenin Blanc (45%) and a splash of Riesling (5%), and the ’09 “Road Trip”, a super-Tuscan inspired red wine blended with 80% Sangiovese, 10% Syrah, and 10% Cabernet.  These were quite enjoyable.  "Lake Day" was very crisp and refreshing – perfect for summer, and the "Road Trip" was a heavier red without being overly bold – drinkable as I would say, ‘from ingredients to dessert’. 

Speaking of dessert – the wine that put a big smile on my face was “First Kiss”.  The label alone causes you to smirk.  Flirty, and brilliant, as Barbara’s phone number is that of the tasting room.  I typically do not care for dessert wines, as I find them a little too sweet for my taste.  This one was different.  While it is a traditionally crafted ‘port’ style wine dominated by the Touriga grape, the curveball is that they fortify it with cognac. There was a definite cognac nose, and had a mellow berry taste, making it not overly sweet, just simply delicious.  This balance makes it a perfect pairing with dark chocolate, or a nice stilton.  Price point is slightly above average for a dessert wine at $20/bottle, but it is well worth it for this rare dessert wine!

Check out all of the “Days Off” collection online, or if in the area, stop by the tasting room for a sample.  They currently have a promotion - mention you’d like the “tasting2fer” and you will receive two tasting for the price of one!

Cheers!