A Wine and Dine Evening (mostly just wine)

Red Wine.  Vino Tinto.   Vinno Rosso.  Vin Rouge.

Friday, I attended the Big Red Wine Festival and rediscovered my love and appreciation for red wine.  If you've never been to one, it is wine tasting to the EXTREME!  In two hours, people imbibe a plethora of wine, and leave feeling fine (three sheets to the wind)...  Most festivals have a flat entrance fee.  People tend to get their monies worth.

But apart from that aspect, I enjoyed talking to the distributors.  Hearing what makes their wines unique.  How the wine came to be.  And of course tasting for myself!  So from this fun experience, I compiled a list of some noteworthy wines:

1.  Frog's Leap Winery, Napa Valley, Cabernet Sauvingnon

     Totally organic and delicious.  I'm told it's a beautiful winery with butterflies and no pesticides!  A typical cab, very flavorful, and you can taste the purity of it.

 2.  Trivento Winery, Argentina, Amado Sur

      A Malbec (73%) blended with Bonarda (15%) and Syrah (12%).  Very smooth and unique because there aren't too many blended Malbecs.  Amado Sur means love of the south and this wine exudes the Argentine pride for the Malbec grape. 

 3.  Errazuriz Winery, Chile, Single Vineyard Cabernet Sauvingnon

      Yum.  I know I'm being partial to the cabs, but this was absolutely delicious.  Bold flavors, I tasted the oak. Apparently they use a new oak barrel each time (possibly wasteful, but delicious nonetheless).

4.  Cline, Sonoma, Ancient Vines Zinfandel

     These vines are 100 years old and at the prime of their taste/flavor.  This Zin is smooth and flavorful.  At $14 it's a $6 price increase on the on the regular-aged vine zin, but so worth it (I tried both to compare)

5.  Cline, Sonoma, Cashmere 

     While at the Cline table, an older gentleman came up and told me the story of how this wine got it's name.  Here's roughly what happened:  A female in the original winery family (last name Jacuzzi) made up her own blend of grapes into this delicious wine.  At first, being that it was the olden days and woman weren't really respected, they didn't sell this on the market.  Until... she brought it to one of her husbands parties.  A man their liked it and asked its name, at which point she, as she was big into knitting, replied on the spot Cashmere.  And thus it was named (fittingly it is a very light, yet bold, smooth wine), marketed, and soon became a top seller! Women power!

6.  Uppercut, Napa Valley, Cabernet Sauvignon  

     I'm running out of ways to describe how wine tastes.  But this is a delicious typical cab!

7.  Tarrica, Paso Robles, Cabernet Sauvognon and Pinot Noir

8.  Cupcake, Red Velvet

9.  Charles Smith, Velvet Devil Merlot

Disclaimer: These last few may or may not be as good as I remember... I tried them toward the end of the two hour tasting spree...  Drink at your own risk.   (Also, I don't own any images above.  No copyright infringement is intended.)

That sums up my wine fest experience.  If your into red wine but get overwhelmed in the big winery section at the grocery, I hope this helps.  I noticed most of these were 2007.  So aging 4 years seemed about right!  Enjoy!!  p.s. Thanks, Mel, for giving me this blog post idea :)

peace & love