Thank gawd that wines as unpleasant as the last one we opened are pretty rare. God, Thank you! This one here is quite nice. Mountain Estate, perhaps that’s what gives it the slight flavor of rich blueberry juice. A taste from my childhood, the juice on your fingers after picking every little berry off the bushes you can possibly reach.
I like the flavor of this wine. Just slightly sweet, dense and powerful like high mountain berries. A velvety smooth mouthfeel.
The bottle also comes with a practical screw-top cap. That’s bad news for the cork forests of southern Europe, but good news for lazy wine drinkers.
$10 @ the QFC with their “frequent boozer” discount.
Well, I usually find most wines are perfectly good in most ways, or certainly “good enough”. Not this time. I’m afraid a more accurate description of this wine’s varietal would be “half-empty juice box found in the minivan”. I guess there is a reason why this bottle is on extra-special make-it-go-away sale at the QFC.
Even though it’s attractively priced, don’t buy this unless you’re fond of half-fermented corn syrup. This is a great wine buy if you’re looking to give up drinking.
This is a spice molassas cookie, maybe your mom made something like this, but it didn’t have such a nice foamy head on it. This beer is a holiday snack in a bottle.
This beer is actually made by Unibroue. These guys make beer with flavor. Dang fine beer. Usually it’s $8 or more a bottle. You can get this from TJ’s for $4.99.
If this isn’t living the good life for us regular folks, then I don’t know what is. I imagine this guy name “Joe” down in Monrovia, CA passed out on a stack of these empty bottles and chocolate wrappers inside a vast warehouse of Trader Joe products. The happiest fat guy in the world!
What can a man say? Sierra Nevada, they turn out winner every year. Malty, slighty bitter. Good mouthfeel, lots of flavor, but it’s not a heavy beer. If you’ve been a microbrew fan for a while, you probably already know everything there is to know about Sierra Nevada and their products.
If this world is new to you, definitely it’s a good buy. $7.49/6 at the QFC with their Frequent Consumer card.
Well, to be more specific, finding a North American Chorizo that can stand up to Spanish-made Chorizo in a fight… That’s what I’m looking for. When you sit yrselfs down to snack on a bit of chorizo when you’re just off the plane in Barajas it’s a full-body experience. The magic of Pork and Paprika relaxes your body and you think, “mmm yeah, that’s the stuff.”
Here in the Pacific Northwest sometimes one can find chorizo from Idaho that claims to be made in the Basque style. There’s also Mexican style chorizo to be found, but I feel Mexican chorizo is distant enough from the olde world that it deserves to be considered on it’s own merits. What I want is a snacking chorizo. The importance of snacking in one’s life cannot be underestimated. The act of snacking should refresh both the mind and spirit. Give one the strength to carry on, a boost to your heels, a smile to your lips. An appropriate snack should also contribute to your good health, not just cover you in neon-colored artificial cheez debris and GMO Korn(tm) chunklets.
Spanish snacking technology is far beyond anything we’ve developed here. The Spanish really know how to snack. They also have the best pork products I’ve had the good fortune to enjoy. I don’t know if it’s the pork, the paprika or just the processing they do differently, but I haven’t found a new world chorizo that’s got the same zing. That won’t stop me from trying to find one, however.
Finding any kind of chorizo is a challenge in Portland. Yesterday I was at Zupan’s and brought home two packages of Venetian brand Chorizo “Spanish Style Sausage” from Hamilton, Ontario and one actual Spanish Chorizo from Palacios Alimentación S.A. (http://www.palacios.es/). Here’s the good news – the Venetian brand is pretty good! It compares well with the Palacios. The sad news is it looks like even though the two Venetian chorizos were packaged differently, to my tongue they are the same product.
So there’s hope for North America! Keep an eye out for Venetian brand, and snacking students, your homework is to keep tasting. Lunch is out there – now go find it!
$9.99 at QFC after your QFC Valu-Ape Discount Card discount. What can I say? Labels on bottles are very important. When I see this label with it’s name and mellow sage colors I can’t help but feel a visceral connection to the many hours I’ve spent puttering around Eastern Oregon gloriously goofing off, and the wonderful smell of sage.
Of course, then I open the bottle and it doesn’t smell at all of sage, just of red wine. It’s decent red wine, maybe just a hint of sweet smokiness, but nothing like the sweet scent of the sagelands after a thunderstorm wafting over the der Thing while rolling towards Sisters. Figure out how to put that in a bottle and you’ll never want for money again.
Folkes, we have another winner. Ok, it’s true. It’s very hard to dislike a wine that came home as a prize from one of your first dates with your wife unit, but this wine’s also got what I like. Bought straight from the vintners after a lovely afternoon where we crashed an event that we didn’t know was semi-private. Got to walk amongst the vines, discuss global warming, view the casks and have lunch in the beautiful Oregon sunshine. Ah, bliss.
And it tastes good too. I like a wine that’s strong enough to defend itself, yet slides down the throat like it’s on a rollercoaster to yumminess. If you’re into that sort of thing, it’s got a touch of fruitiness, maybe like dark cherries, or maybe I think that because I happen to like this dark slightly munchy character. But don’t take my word for it, try some yourselfs!
We all know what nature abhorrs — a vacuum. Once nature has had it’s way with vacuum for the day, what’s next on it’s hit list? Your frukkin’ white carpet. Only carpet salesmen know why white carpet is installed in homes. That reason is because you never sell white carpet once. It always has to be replaced. Nature hates it.
Sure, it looks good in a nice empty place, but then you move in with your mighty meaty man-hands and their luna-orbit-displacing man muscles. It’s only a matter of time before nature strikes in the form of your hand and a glass of red wine and nature hates. a. white. carpet.
G. Durand 2007 Syrah
Here’s the real victim: G. Durand’s 2007 Syrah. $10/bottle with the QFC discount. Thank you France! Dang this stuff is good. Good strong mouth feel. Tastes good on the tongue. Goes down easy. It’s a winner, something that should not be on the dang white carpet.
Sez right there on the label: “Premium California Wine”, and how often has our friend Trader Joe steered us wrong? Hardly never my friends, and this is no exception. I’m drinking it chilled, as any sensible visitor to Al-Andalus would. It’s light and pleasant, going down easy… Here’s my question though:
The label reads, “Winemaker’s Reserve”. Hello? What *is* that supposed to mean? Both beer and wine products suffer from pathetic usage of old-school designations. At one time “Private Reserve” might have meant “You Can’t Have Any”. Today it seems to mean, “Put Me In The Cooler With All The Others”. If they are actually “reserving” the best for the owners, stockholders, pets, BFF’s or whoever, what do they call it? “Double Secret Private Reserve”?
