2007 Columbia Valley "H3" Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet Sauvignon

So this is yet another bottle we sampled at Beth's house while having dinner on Sunday. Beth and Brent brought this bottle out. After loving the Cellar No. 8, I was excited to try another!

The smell of this wine was like leather and chocolate! I guess that should have tipped me off. It was way too strong of a finish for me. This has the most kick of a Cabernet Sauvignon I've tried so far. After one taste, I passed my glass on to Noah. It just wasn't for me. It tasted like leather, chocolate, currants, and had a burning aftertaste.

Upon my research today, it scored decent too (90 points). It's described as, "Polished and silky in texture, with ripe blackberry, currant and mint flavors that keep sailing through the long, expressive finish. The tannins are beautifully integrated."

I also found it interesting it was noted as being best if drank between 2011 and 2017. I wonder in a few years, if I'd like the flavor better? I also saw on some private ratings that people didn't like it when they first opened the bottle, but after decanting it and letting it air out for few hours, they tried it again and liked it better. Hmmm. I might need to try this in the future with wines I find too bold. Maybe they just need to release some of the flavors!

2003 HRM Rex-Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon

We opened this a few days ago, and had it with dinner. we just recently finished the bottle when we went to dinner at Beth's house on Sunday night. I honestly don't remember what it was paired with the first night we drank it. Sorry!

It is a medium-bodied Cab, with a smokey, dark flavor and long, dry finish. It was bit bold for my taste, but still drinkable. Noah loved it. He seems to prefer the heavier flavors.

When I did my research on this wine, I found it has won lots of awards!! It scored 94 points, and was awarded Best of Region! It continuously is awarded Gold Medals in the tasting competitions, and was named the "Ultimate Hamburger Wine." Ha!

I guess Noah has the same taste as the professionals!

2007 Chateau St. Michelle Nellie's Garden Dry Rose

This one we also opened while at Beth's house for dinner. I bought it at Albertson's, mostly because it was Chateau St. Michelle, and because it was a kind of their wine I had yet to tast. It says on the bottle its good with any meal. I assumed it was similar to a white zinfindel based on its description and color. It was pink, but darker than your average white zinfindel or blush. It was very sweet, and fruity.

I am always intrigued by how flavors develop in wine, so I did my research on this bottle. Here's what I found:

• This Dry Rose is actually 98% Syrah, and 2% Grenache. This actually amazes me. I usually consider Syrah to be more dry, and less sweet. It just goes to show how versitile a grape can be.

• 2007 was a good year for the grapes in eastern washington. It was warm early, and carried average temperatures throughout the summer. In May, 2 weeks before bloom, there was a whole week of 100+ temperatures. "This heat spike lead to smaller canopy which allowed for more light penetration and contributed to overall good fl avor development in the fruit. The hot
  temperatures also contributed to smaller berries with concentrated flavors."

• The Syrah grapes for the Rose were harvested slightly earlier than the grapes were for the reds, to allow for a more pure, fruit flavor. The fruit was left on the skins for only a matter of hours to allow for just the right amount of coloring to create the coloring for the wine.

• 82% of the wine was fermented in steel barrells (like a sweet wine would), and the remaining 18% of the wine was aged in neutral oak barrels for 2 months to add the "rich mouthfeel."

Perhaps all that information is a bore to you. But it is exciting and new to me. I love to near about each vintage, each winery, each vineyard, and each bottle of wine. It is amazing to me how there are so many types of grapes, and then beyond that...how they can create such different flavors. I mean, this is the perfect example. Syrah grapes can be pressed and aged in smokey oak barrels and create a spicy, full bodied Red wine...or they can be harvested early, fermented in mostly steel barrels, and turn out light and fruity. That gets a WOW from me. :)

2008 Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon

Last night we had our weekly dinner at Beth's house. Beth made wonderful lasagna, and cheddar biscuits. I brought along a couple of bottles of wine, as usual. However, Brent and Beth had opened a bottle of Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon. I had not heard of the winery, and I'm all about trying new wines. And OH, I'm so glad I did! This by far is my favorite Sauvignon so far! It was medium bodied, with hints of spice and chocolate. It had hardly any finish. I think that is why I liked it. Sadly, with some research online, it only scored an 83 because of its "lack of finish." Oh well. I loved it! It went with the lasagna great, although I honestly would have drank it with anything...or nothing to eat!

2008 Barefoot Cellars Pinot Noir

Today Cooper told me he wanted to watch "Meatballs." A few weeks ago we went to the dollar theatre and saw "Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs." Cooper did great until the last 25 minutes of the movie, and Noah had to take him out of the theatre. So they both missed the ending. We really hadn't talked about the movie since that day, so I was surprised he remembered. So I made an evening of it, and I bought him the movie and made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. I bought a Pinot Noir to pair with the red sauce. I was trying to be cheap, so I bought the cheapest one I could find at target, with was a Barefoot for $4.99.
I smelled like cherry and spices, and tasted about the same. For being named "medium bodied" on the bottle, it was a bit bland. I'm not complaining though, because I don't mind bland! It was just drying enough to make you want to take another bite of dinner. It went well with the meatballs, and probably would have went really well with a red meat like steak. For under $5, I thought it was pretty darn good!
Barefoot just released their Pinot Noir last May (first to those who special ordered cases, and then eventually it was released to the stores). Since, it has gotten all 5 star ratings on their website by visiting guests! I'm pretty impressed.

2008 Columbia Crest Two Vines Gewürztraminer

Tonight we had already eaten "Linner", so we decided to finish the night with crackers and cheese. And of course, after a very long and busy week at work, I really wanted a glass of wine to unwind. I opened a bottle of Gewurtzraminer, not knowing what it was (nor can I pronounce it). Noah tried to train me in German, but I suck at rolling r's and making u's with an O.





ANYWAY, I really enjoyed it, even if I still can't pronounce it. It basically tasted like champagne without the fizz, and maybe a tad bit less sugar. It was very sweet, and very acidic. It would have paired awesome with fresh fruit, like peaches or pears. It went to our head pretty quickly, and with two glasses I was buzzed and ready for bed. I have a bottle of this wine from Chateau too, and I can't wait to drink it and compare.





I did some research on this wine, and I found that the 2008 was a good year. It scored an 87, and was named the "Best Buy" for the year. Here's the description the winemaker has for it:





"Aromas of spice, lychee and rose petals are followed by flavors of grapefruit and white peach. A subtle sweetness and bright acidity marry seamlessly to create this balanced wine."





I gotta say, the grapefruit and peach makes sense, but I didn't smell roses, and I don't even know what a lychee is.

So here it is! Apparently a lychee is a soapberry. It grows on an evergreen tree in China, Thailand and the Phillipines. It has a hard outer rind, but is similar to the texture of a grape inside (but less juicy). It's apparently sweet and rich in vitamin C. It has a seed in the middle that is poisonous! They've recently started growing them in California, Hawaii, Texas and Florida, and can be bought in worldmarkets in a can. I'm intrigued enough to hunt this down and try them sometime. It might make them easier to identify in wine!

2008 Sutter Home Cabernet Sauvignon

This wine we paired with the wonderful home-cooking at Beth's house. She made chicken chow mein, beef and broccoli, rice and pot stickers. The sutter home was fruity, but not very dry. I thought it had a poor aftertaste, and personally switched to drinking the Blanc we had left over from the night before, But Beth and Kayla and Noah seemed to enjoy it.

Noah here! Like Shauna said, we paired this wine with an awesome home made meal of Chinese food! The wine itself was, in my opinion, excellent. It was very full bodied with a long finish that really, well, dried out the mouth. But it did so in a good way. The wine had mild flavors of dark fruit that were not overpowering. It had a bit of spice, but combined with the fruit, it made for an excellent wine.

When combined with the food (especially the chicken chow mein and Beth's home made "fortuneless" cookies) the wine complemented perfectly. Of course after a couple glasses of this and a couple glasses of the other 4 bottles we shared that night, it's had to recall all the details of this wine.

Overall, I was very impressed with this wine. Especially considering it was literally the cheapest red wine I could find at the Albertson's I picked it up at.

2008 Chateau Ste Michelle Sauvignon Blanc

Noah and I opened this bottle we got from the winery tour to enjoy with dinner. It was a "nothing special" kind of night for dinner, and I felt silly pairing wine with chicken nuggets....but I could really use a glass of wine to relax sometimes!

This wine was superb! It was acidic and crisp, but not too sweet to enjoy with dinner. You could definitely taste the melon and pear in the wine. It had NO aftertaste, just a clean cut finish. I really liked it, and had it again a few nights later! Yum!

Lucky Duck Cabernet Sauvignon

To kick off Superbowl, we opened a bottle of Lucky Duck. It's a cheapo $4.00 wine at Wal-mart, but I figured it was worth a try. It's a chilean wine, which commonly is known for "cheap" wine. However, I read somewhere recently that the weather is gradually improving in Chile, allowing it to produce higher quality wines.
It's a very dark wine. It smelled sweet, but wasn't quite as sweet as I predicted. It had a lot of cherry flavor and some berry tastes too. It had a rich, drying feeling, and not much of an aftertaste. Although red wine is supposed to be served at room temperature, I couldn't help but wonder if it would be better chilled. We were drinking it with snacky appetizers, like buffalo wings and chips. I didn't much like sipping it, but thought maybe it was because I paired it wrong.
A few days later, I had a glass with dinner, and we had it with pizza. It tasted better this time around. I'm not sure if it was because of a better food pairing, or if it was simply because the wine had been open for a few days. Either way, the wine itself was a decent $4.00 spent.

2008 Columbia Concord

Ryan and Megan were over for the weekend as well. Ryan brought a big bottle of wine with him. They have a friend who works at a vineyard over in the Tri-cities. She bottled her own sampling of a Concord wine. I'd never heard of concord (outside of your basic grape juice!) so I was more than willing to try.

My Dad and I poured ourselves 2 glasses, and immediately responded with, a "wow" when we swirled and smelled it. It was super duper sweet smelling. No surprise, it was just as sweet. I couldn't even drink it. It was like dumping a cup of sugar into a bottle of Boones Farm. I guess that makes sense, as concord grapes are used to make Welches grape juice, jellies and jams. But still...WOW. So sweet. I think I may have loved it in my early days of drinking, back when I could drink Boones Farm and wine coolers. But that stuff is just so sweet, it makes my stomach turn now. Dad and I passed our glasses on to Megan and Kelly. They loved it. Between Megan, Ryan and Kelly...i think they finished that giant bottle of wine. Phew!

2008 Vintage Chateau Ste Michelle Dry Riesling

This was a bottle we bought at the winery after we did our first tasting. I LOVED it, and just HAD to bring home a bottle. I was happy to share it with my family. My sisters like wine, but they prefer your sweet and white wines. I thought this was a good choice to draw them into the drier wines, without jumping into something too bold.
The winery describes this as a dry style Riesling with refreshing aromas of citrus, melon and peach coupled with crisp green apple notes. It smells great! I love Riesling, but it is much too sweet to drink with dinner. This is perfect, as it is dry enough to pair with just about any dinner. I had it with a steak and shrimp and it was amazing! It has a very clean, dry finish. I think I enjoyed it this time around even more than at the winery. I'm guessing because I had it with a meal.

2007 Red Guitar Navarra Old Vine Tempranillo/Garnacha

We drank this bottle at the same event at my parents house. Noah picked it up at the grocery store on his way over after work.

This wine is 55% Tempranillo and 45% Garnacha. The grapes come from the Navarra region of Spain. It smelled very sweet for a dark red wine. It definitely had a sweet taste to it, but not in the way I expected. It was still very drying, and very bold with dark berries and currants. It also kind of tasted like pepper. yuck. The after taste was too lasting for me, and the more I drank, the more I disliked it. That's a shame. Usually after a few tastes, it gets better. Of course, I was drinking this AFTER a glass of Dry Reisling, and after a glass of normal Reisling. Probably not the best order to drink it in.

I tried another glass of it a few days later, and it did NOT hold well in the fridge. It tasted like peppered dill. Yuck.

2001 Barrell Select Covey Run Syrah

Last Saturday we had a family get together at my parent's house. My dad made prime rib, and Noah and I provided wine for everyone to taste. We finally opened our Covey Run Syrah. We have had it since Cooper was a baby!
First off, I couldn't find tasting notes for it. The Covey Run website has tasting notes for "all its past varieties" except apparently they don't! But overall, it is a VERY dark wine. It was slightly acidic, and very heavy-bodied for my taste. It was very deep and dark, like cherries and pomergranate, but with not much sweetness to balance it. It was interesting because so far, most of the dark wines we have tried have also been very dry. This didn't leave that "suck your mouth dry" feeling in your mouth. It was interesting. Noah really really liked it. I found it too bold. Guess my taste buds just aren't ready for it!

2008 Vintage Mark West Pinot Noir

Last night we celebrated my 26th birthday at Chopstix with some friends and family. Ken ordered a bottle of 2008 Vintage Mark West Pinot Noir, and we all got a chance to enjoy it. I must say, it had great flavor. It was a very heavy wine, with dark fruit flavors (cherry, strawberry, plum maybe?) but also had a kick of spice to it. It was oaky, but fit the flavor right.

I don't have the bottle obviously, so I can't quote the labels description, but I did skim over the Mark West website today. The 2008 Pinot actually won a lot of awards! It was #1 in its catergory in the Wine Trials. (Basically it is a big blind tasting, where they use paper bags to cover the bottles, and the best wines are chosen based on flavor. It also was named the "Steal of the Year" By Sunset magazine. But anyway, I found it neat that this wine is 100% pinot noir grapes...no mix. They are grown, vinted and aged in California.

I've enjoyed leasrning a little bit about each winery, wine and vineyard with each bottle I open. OH, and for my birthday, Teri bought me red wine glasses. Now we can successfully swirl our wine without sloshing. :-)

1998 Reserve Salmon Harbor Chardonnay

Last night we had wine and dinner night at Beth's. Teri made wondeful potato soup. We couldn't decide what kind of wine to bring, but I went with the Chardonnay because I figured the buttery flavor would go with the white "sauce" of potato soup.
We've had this bottle for a few years, so it was finally time to drink it! It's supposed to be a decent bottle....it scored an 86, and as the label says, it's a reserve. This is supposed to mean it came from a specially selected barrell of wine chosen by the wine-maker because it had something unique and special about it compared to the rest of the barrells. However, we've come to learn that some brands like to mark 'reserve' on all their bottles, simply so they can charge more per bottle.
This wine had a very deep color. Crude to say, but it was sort of the color of urine. Or maybe sparkling apple cider. It was very thick. Buttery is the only word I can really come up with to describe it. While its rated as being fruity, we didn't find it had much identifiable fruit flavors...the fruit was very subtle, and overwhelmed by the buttery, rich flavor. It went okay with the soup, but I must note it was TERRIBLE with m&m cookies. Ha.
Noah didn't really like this wine at all. I'm interested to try another Chardonnay to see if it is just Chardonnays in general that he doesn't enjoy. I found it to be okay...better than many chardonnays I've had (of course, we tend to usually buy cheap wine so I guess that is not saying much). So for now I will just say it definitely was better than the stuff out of a box. :-)

Oak Leaf Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc

Tonight I picked up a bottle of Oak Leaf Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc at Walmart for $2.97. Ha. Pretty cheapo wine, so I wasn't expecting much. It doesn't even have an explanation on the back of the bottle! So all I really know about it is that it is vinted and bottled in California.

We were having pizza for dinner, and I honestly didn't know (and still don't know!) what kind of wine you match with pizza. I wasn't in the mood for a red wine, so I grabbed this one because it was on sale. It has a very acidic, grassy smell...which set me off a bit. But I was pleasantly surprised by the taste. It was crisp, sweet and citrisy, with a very short and mild finish. Maybe I just am attuned to liking cheap wine. lol. But I enjoyed it. I figure if I can buy something I enjoy for $2.97 a bottle, why not!

2006 Vintage Chateau Ste Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon

On Friday we opened a bottle of wine we bought at Chateau Ste. Michelle. The grapes are grown locally in the Columbia Valley.

The bottles description: "Magical combination of sun, soil & water - the "terrior" of Washington State's world class growing region produces long-lived Cabernet Sauvignon with intese aromas and flavors. Dominated by rich black fruit, this wine shows a suppleness achieved by extended aging in small oak barrels."

We were told at the winery to eat this with red meat, so we paired this wine with pot roast and vegetables. It definitely had an oaky flavor, and had a very deep fruity taste. Standing alone, I found it a bit bold and drying. However, after taking a bite of pot roast, I enjoyed it much more. I thought it paired really well!

Noah felt the opposite. He liked it at first, but thought it the finishing taste lasted too long, and it had too much black fruit flavor.

We finished this bottle the next night with crackers, medium cheddar cheese, and apple slices. It liked it with the triscuits, and it was okay with the cheese, but it tasted awful with the apples! I guess that's why your supposed to drink lighter, more acidic and citrusy wines with fruit! I can't

For more information on this wine, Click here and review the fact sheet. It covers the weather that season, the aging process for this bottle of wine, and food pairing suggestions.

Also, we we mentioned earlier, no wine is 100% what it says...

This bottle was:

76% cabernet sauvignon

20% syrah

2% merlot

1% cabernet franc

1% malbec

2006 GatoNegro Shiraz

On Thursday we had dinner at Bethany's house. Noah and I brought a bottle of GatoNegro Shiraz. We actually bought this wine over a year ago. Right before I found out I was pregnant with Keegan, we went to Safeway and picked out 6 bottles of wine at random that we thought we should try. Shortly after, I found out I was pregnant, and we never drank any of them. So what better time than now?

The bottle describes the wine as a blend of cherry, raspberry and tannins. It had a very strong and recognizable oak flavor. It was very bold, and almost a bit too bold for me. It was very drying in my mouth. Noah really liked it. It went well with the our entree. We had it with meat lasagna, ceasar salad, and bread with vinegar and oil.

I'll be interested to try another shiraz and see if it was just this particular shiraz I didn't care for, or if shiraz in general is just too bold for me.

Our Newfound Love Interest...

For our five year wedding annniversary, Noah and I spent the night in Redmond, WA and visited wine country in Woodinville. He and I have never had the luxury of visiting a winery, or wine bar. We were excited for a new adventure. We never realized how much it would intrigue our minds and tastebuds!

At our first stop, we spent one on one time with a wine educator at Columbia Valley Winery. She reassured us that no question was a dumb question, and that you could possibly taste ANYTHING in a wine, sonot to hestitate to state the flavor we might find ourselves discovering. She taught us how to gauge coloring, and how to properly swirl our wineglass, and smell the scent it releases. We both are struggling to know and identify individual fruit, woods and tannins in the wine. But our wine educator said it is a talent that develops over time and experience. She said she savors every smell and flavor when she is eating, trying to close her eyes and remember how each cherry or loganberry tastes and smells. She said she finds herself buying odd spices and fruits at natural markets, so she can better identify them in tastings. We had no idea it took so much experience and research!

She then taught us the proper way to "taste" wine, and not just drink it. It's an acquired talent that allows you to taste and smell the wine at the same time. We tasted 6 different wines and left feeling like we'd spent the whole afternoon in school! It was amazing!

We then continued on to the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery across the street. In this location, they actually bottle wine. We took the winery tour and learned the intricate cycle that is needed to create a quality wine.

So while you may understand and know wine, here's some facts I learned that intrigue me:

First, I never took into consideration what the year of a bottle of wine meant. Yes, I understood it meant that was the year the grapes were harvested and the wine was made. Beyond that, I assumed it what just a way of seeing how long the wine had aged. Instead, I learned that if you know your wineries, and their location, you can judge some wines based on the weather of that particular year. For example, to make a sweet dessert wine, the grapes must be harvested while frozen. The weather must drop below 14 degrees. The grapes then must be hand picked in the wee hours of the night, and processed immediately. That is why sweet dessert wines come in smaller bottles, and during certain years are more expensive, or nearly non-existant. The earth must provide ideal weather conditions to produce a good bottle of wine for the year!

Second, I learned that if you open a bottle of wine, and it tastes gross...there's a good possibility that wine is BAD. I recall a few years ago Noah and I opening a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, thinking we would try a red wine for the first time. Noah described the flavor as mildewy shower curtain, but we gagged down our wine, not wanting to waste a bottle simply because it was too bold for us. Now we know that bottle was probably corked, and should have been thrown away. It's possible for a bottle to grow bacteria on the base of the cork, infecting the wine and ruining it. This happens more frequently than you'd think, about every one in twelve bottles is corked. That is often why many Reisling are bottled with twist caps (not because it's a cheap bottle of wine!) and why some wineries are switching to the rubbery corks.

Third, we learned that most wine is not 100% what the label claims it to be. If the bottle says merlot, there could be 60% merlot, and 40% another type (or multiple types) of wine. This is because when they are making wine, they have it in huge vats. As the wine maker goes through and tastes the batches, he may intermix the different types of wines in order to create the flavor he wants. Some wineries will state the percentages in the print on the bottle, but often they will not.

There is so much more that Noah and I desire to educate ourselves in the future. We've fallen in love with wine, and have found it to be an art we want to pursue. That is why we've decided to start this blog. For ever bottle of wine we explore, we wanted a way to record what we tasted, how we liked it, and how it went with the meal we served it with. This way, as we drink more and more types of wine, we'll have a way to track the styles we like, and learn to fine tune our ability to pick out a suitable wine.

So here...our journey begins!