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    • Wine On Wednesday: Pride

      Posted at 6:00 am by Lisa Cavallari
      Feb 21st

      It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted this wine.  Too long, in fact.  My husband’s first boss out of college came over for dinner a couple of weeks ago with his wife and brought a couple of bottles of Pride Cabernet.  He loved the wine so much when he visited the winery, he signed up for the deluxe membership and now has crates of these bottles cluttering his wine cellar.  Poor chap.  Did I just say chap you are probably wondering?  Yep.  My typing has a British accent when I’m feeling cheeky.  😉  Anywho, it was our pleasure to drink some of his wines from 2006.

      The corks were perfectly intact and the wine tasted young.  I’m used to a brownish tinge and the cork beginning to crumble if the wine is more than 10 years old so it’s a true sign of good wine storage when that’s not the case.  Temperature control, keeping the bottle away from light and storing the wine on its side are the best things you can do to ensure your wine stays fresh and keeps the seal solid.

      The Pride Cabernet is a blend of 88% Cabernet, 10% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot.  The wine was full-bodied and a deep purple red.  Flavors of dark cherry, vanilla, coffee and black tea lingered on the palate and the finish was strong.  The wine definitely needed to be filtered and aerated to prevent the sediment from getting in the glass.  You can see it clinging to the inside of the bottle in my picture above.  This happens a lot with older wines.  We paired this with homemade spaghetti and Italian sausage in a red sauce.  It was perfection!

      If you want to learn more about Pride Vineyard, check out my post from 4 years ago.

      Back in the day, this wine sold for about $60, but you can find it online for prices that range from $80-$200, depending on the website.

      Rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷.8 out of 5  Exceptional!!

      Cheers my dears!

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      Posted in Red Wine, Wine | Tagged Pride Cabernet, Pride Vineyard
    • Wine On Wednesday: Materra Right Bank

      Posted at 5:30 am by Lisa Cavallari
      Dec 13th

      We opened this 2012 wine while we were out in Galena and my, did it taste good!  This was a Christmas gift from my husband’s first boss out of college.  This guy knows wine!  Last year, we were lucky enough to try the Wine Spectator’s wine of the year, L Cabernet thanks to him.  This year, the wine he gave us came directly from his daughter-in-law’s family vineyard out in Napa.

      The Materra Right Bank drinks like a dominantly Cab blend so I was pretty shocked to see the breakdown with Merlot taking the lead at 96%!  Maybe Wine Spectator is onto something here because their new wine of the year is Duckhorn’s Merlot.  There’s only 2% Cabernet, 1% Petit Verdot and 1% Malbec rounding the Right Bank out nicely.

      The color is a rich ruby red when poured into the glass.  It smelled just like Napa.  I tasted some bright red fruits with cocoa, vanilla and loamy earth on the finish.  Extremely smooth and paired very well with the Sartori peppercorn cheese and Lindt chocolate truffles we served.

      You can order this wine on the Materra wines website for $50.  An outstanding wine and perfectly priced.

      Rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷1/2 out of 5 wine glasses

      Cheers my dears!

       

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      Posted in Red Wine, Wine | Tagged Cunat Family Vineyard, Materra Right Bank Wine
    • Wine On Wednesday: Pullus

      Posted at 6:29 am by Lisa Cavallari
      Apr 26th

      pullus

      Have you ever tried wine from Slovenia?  I strongly encourage you to start if your answer was no.  We tried this beautiful Pinot Grigio at our last book club meeting and I can’t stop thinking about how perfect it will be to drink this summer.  In general, I’m always on the lookout for a good white and if one stands out I’ll always be sure to share it as I am now.

      Pullus wine is made in the city of Ptuj.  There are labyrinths beneath the city that cellar this wine since 1239!  The winery is Ptujska Klet and the winemaker is Bojan Kobal.

      If you are not typically a fan of Pinot Grigio, fear not, because this one will probably convert you.  The wine was a surprising color like pink grapefruit juice when poured.  It tasted slightly effervescent, with floral notes and a creamy finish.  A very pleasant wine to drink!

      You can find this stunner for about $15 at most wine shops.  (Don’t be afraid to ask if they can order it for you too!)  Many thanks to Dijana for introducing us to all the wonderful wines from the Balkan region!  Na zdravje! I think that’s cheers in Slovenian.  😉

      Wine rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷 out of 5

      Cheers my dears!

       

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      Posted in Wine | Tagged Pullus Pinot Grigio, Pullus Wine, Slovenian Wine
    • Wine On Wednesday: Vintage Port

      Posted at 8:30 am by Lisa Cavallari
      Oct 26th

      port_wine_box

      This post dates me because we opened a bottle recently that goes all the way back to 1977, my birth year.  Yep.  The jig is up.  The big 4-0 is around the corner and you know what?  I really don’t care.  That’s probably the greatest thing about getting older.  You just stop caring about the stupid stuff like worrying so much about what others think.

      This bottle is pretty special.  My mom bought it for me in Portugal when she was on an insurance trip with my dad back in 1985.  She also bought one for my brother, but the shopkeeper informed her that my vintage had been a slightly better year.  This bottle had been stored in their basement until my husband and I bought our house 10 years ago so it’s been aging in our basement ever since.

      filter_port

      I left the job of opening the bottle up to my husband.  He has a knack for such things, but even so this bottle proved difficult to open.  The seal was intact which was a very positive sign.  The cork began to crumble from the corkscrew so he had to remove it in bits and pieces.  Then he strained the wine through a sieve into a decanter.  There was quite a lot of sediment and pieces of cork that the sieve caught.  It reminded me of coffee grounds.  Next, the wine needed time to open up.  Think about being a liquid trapped in a bottle for almost 40 years.  You’d need to stretch your legs and take in some air too!  We gave it almost 2 hours to breathe.

      When the time was up, I was relieved to smell that the wine had no trace of a vinegar scent which is a sure sign that the cork and seal did their job all of these years.  Our two friends, who actually enjoy drinking port noted the scent of plums which was right on target.  Those two loved the port, but the rest of us were not digging it.  It was syrupy in texture and left you breathing fire like a dragon on the finish.  If port is supposed to do that, then great for those of you who love it.  I’ll stick to my dry reds and whites.

      Overall, I wasn’t expecting to love or even like the wine.  It was the story behind it and the fact that I was sharing the experience with the only two people I know that can appreciate a good port.  The back of the bottle is also pretty cool and kind of spooky so it’s been added to my collection of Halloween decorations.

      Cheers my dears!!

      port_wine_2

       

       

       

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      Posted in Wine | Tagged Port Wine, Vintage Port
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