I love great “value” wines. For a wine drinker, there are few things better than buying a low-cost bottle of wine, opening it, and having it surprise you, outpacing its cost with good flavor and quality. The 2016 Block & Tackle Cabernet Sauvignon did exactly that for me. I bought this wine at a local wine shop (shout out to Sunset and Vine in Blowing Rock, NC for this selection. Support your local wine shop!). My wife was grilling out some spicy jalapeno burgers. My cab stock was low, so I picked up this bottle for $16 to pair with our meal.
Secoli Amarone della Valpolicella 2014
It has been a while since I did a wine review. Like everyone else, life happens, so my time to indulge in both drinking wine AND researching it for a blog post has been limited. So I have just been drinking and skipping the research part!
Sea Smoke Southing Pinot Noir 2013
While I haven’t been posting many wine reviews lately, it hasn’t been because I haven’t been drinking any wine. God forbid! No, I’d been drinking down a lot of my Spanish Tempranillo stock for the last few months. But as this year draws to a close, the Missus and I decided to open a bottle of the prize of my (admittedly) meager wine collection, a 2013 Sea Smoke Southing Pinot Noir. While I hoard my bottles of this wine like Smaug in the Hobbit hoarded dwarven gold, after a crappy 2017 I thought it might be nice to end the year on a high note.
Tenuta La Calcinaie San Gimignano Vernaccia 2015
We are going back to Italy for our next wine.
I’m not a big white wine drinker. I tend to prefer heavier, more robust red wines. White wines are usually either too fruity or too sweet for my palate. In addition, there are more health benefits in red wines, so I figure if I’m going to consume the calories, I might as well get the positive effects that go along with a red wine.
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Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco 2012
In preparation for our next “big” trip, I am again tasting the wines of Italy.
Barbaresco is one of the great wines of Piemonte, a region located in Northwest Italy. Barbaresco is made from the Nebbiolo grape, which has been grown in the Piemonte as far back as the 13th century. Nebbiolo is a late maturing grape, and is tempermental, very sensitive to different soils and climates. The grapes in this wine are grown at an elevation of 600 to 1300 feet above sea level.
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Castello di Ama Chianti Classico
Well, I’m finally leaving my beloved Spanish Reds for a bit and turning to Italy. As usual, my wine selections often reflect my future or recent travels, and Italy may be next wine country on the agenda. Historically if I drink Italian wines, I gravitate to Chianti wines (minus any fava beans of course!)