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!

2008 Handley Syrah

view from room at Albion River InnOne of our favorite get-a-way locations is the Albion River Inn, located in Northern California.  There are a number of reasons this place is a favorite. The cozy rooms (with no TV or phone service) and amazing views of the ocean make it a perfect spot to completely disconnect and relax. This visit always starts with a welcome gift of a ½ bottle of Handley Chardonnay upon arrival to our room. We’ve always enjoyed the wine, and this last trip we made it a point to visit the winery, which is only a few miles away from the Inn. 

All the wine we sampled that day was good, but the one that really stood out was the 2008 Syrah. This is a complex Syrah with aromas of chocolate covered fruit, and tastes of berry pie. With silky tannins and long sweet oak finish, this wine is very drinkable on its own, and pairs easily with food. Turns out, the syrah vineyards were sold and there are only a few years of production remaining. They produced just 427 cases of the ‘08, and it is available winery direct only. At a price point of only $18, we shipped a few bottles home. It stuck with us so much that day, we returned to grab another bottle for dinner!

We recently opened one of those bottles we shipped home. When the cork was popped, we were a little concerned. The nose was a bit off, and showed excessive minerality. Recalling how tasty it was, we didn’t want to give up. You never know what a little oxygen will do for a wine. So, we pulled out a carafe and let it rest while dinner continued to cook. Boy, were we glad we did. The wine opened up nicely, and it was quite enjoyable with our meal! 

If at first a wine seems a little off the mark, don’t give up hope right away. Give it a chance to wake up a little ~ with a little patience you may be rewarded!

While the Syrah is available winery direct only, the Handley Chardonnay can be found at BevMo ($15) and Specs ($18).  Handley also ships direct to a number of states

Another fun time at Wattle Creek's tasting room

Visiting Wattle Creek’s tasting room in Ghiradelli Square is a must-do activity when you are in San Francisco. Granted, it's not hard to tell we are huge fans of this winery. We've blogged about previous visits (see our 2010 notes), included their wine in our Pinotpalooza and Que Syrah Syrah tasting parties, and yes, that's a photo of us at their winery on Share the Bottle's homepage. 

We dropped in about a week ago to sample some of their latest releases and had a blast. Forrest, our host, was very friendly and was able to answer all our questions with ease. He also allowed us to taste several verticals (multiple vintages of the same grape), which is always a fun way to learn about wine.

Check out Wattle Creek's website to plan your visit. Most of their wine is only sold through the winery.

Here were some of our favorites:

2007 Malbec
This is the reason we joined their wine club. It is a medium-bodied wine with lots of dark fruit and spice on the mouth and lush tannins on the finish.

2006 Cabernet Sauvignon
This is a big cab with deep fruit and stick to your mouth tannins. It’s 93% Cabernet Sauvignon blended with 7% Malbec and just screams “steak dinner” when you taste it.

2009 Shiraz
This is a nicely balanced Syrah with tastes of blackberry on the mouth, light pepper and earthiness mid-palate, and light tannins on the finish. 

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. 

First impression: Santa Barbara Wine Country

We recently made our first trip to the Santa Barbara Wine Country. If our first impression was accurate, I'm sure we'll be making many more visits.

Our itinerary only gave us half a day for wine tasting since we were just spending one night en route to Paso Robles. We decided to focus our attention on the Santa Ynez Valley, which includes the cities of Buellton, Solvang, and Los Olivos. This area is perhaps best known for being featured in the movie Sideways.

Speaking of Sideways, our first stop was Alma Rosa Winery and Vineyards in Buellton. Their wine room was the first one that the characters Miles and Jack visited in the movie. In real life, we picked it based on a random Twitter recommendation (thanks, @brandyea!) and because their wines sounded good. They primarily focused on Pinots - Gris, Blanc, and Noir and most were to our liking.

Next stop was Bridlewood Estate Winery in Los Olivos. A friend of Sally's recommended this one and it didn't disappoint. Their grounds are beautiful with sweeping vistas of the Santa Ynez Valley and their spacious wine room is quite nice without being over the top. They source their grapes from vineyards throughout Central California, so they produce a wide range of delicious varietals. Our favorite was the 2007 "Six Gun" Syrah which was very smokey and would be perfect with Texas BBQ.

Sally outside Bridlewood Estate Winery

Our last stop was the Andrew Murray Vineyards tasting room in downtown Los Olivos. We also discovered them via Twitter (thanks, @gotrhones!). Stephanie, our host, took great care of us and introduced us to some terrific wine. They specialize in Rhone varietals like Syrah but also have some nice limited production wines like their "First Kiss" Port style wine.

Where there's wine, there's often olive oil. We stopped by Olive Hill Farm next door to Andew Murrary for a tasting. Wow! Their infused olive oils and balsamics were terrific. It was also a nice change of pace after tasting wine.

Next, we headed over to our motel, the Hadsten House in Solvang. This is a great example of how Solvang is changing for the good. The Hadsten House is a motel, but has been renovated to be more luxurious like a nice wine country hotel. The room also included a free breakfast buffet and complimentary wine tasting at many area wineries.

Dinner was at a farm to table restaurant in Solvang called Root 246. We were seated in a lounge-style area that featured enormous overstuffed chairs and created a feeling of privacy and coziness. And, the food was absolutely fantastic! Sally had braised short ribs while Jeff had "shake and bake" chicken. Yum!

Jeff enjoying a big chair at Root 246

The next morning, we left our hotel and drove off to our next wine adventure in Paso Robles. Our time in the Santa Barbara Wine Country was short, but we are already thinking about our next visit.