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a little off the beaten trail

April 10, 2010 by jennilee in wine with 0 Comments

Ever since my trip to Japan in high school I have enjoyed sake. whoops, should I have included “high school” and “sake” in the same sentence? Overseas the drinking rules are very different (this is definitely one of those water cooler topics!)

anyways, Eric and I found a great draft sake that runs around $5 a bottle, it is called Hakutsuru Draft Sake. It is light enough to drink with a great sushi dinner, affordable so you do not feel like you are breaking the bank (beats a $10 bottle of wine now doesn’t it!?!) and is easy to tote around :-)

I just found an article on latimes.com talking about fruit-infused sake, why haven’t I thought of that?! Seems so simple, one of those ideas like the plastic things on the ends of shoe laces. Anyways, recipes are pretty simple, cut-up fruit, put in Junmai sake, let sit for a few days, chill and enjoy.

Here are a few of the recipes:

Strawberry-infused sake

Citrus-infused sake

Sort-of like a sangria, Japanese style!

Benmarl ’08 Traminette

April 8, 2010 by jennilee in wine with 0 Comments

Last Friday when I went with my parents to finish-up some more wedding details we stopped by the winery. It was great to get to see the place again after a few months away.  Especially since we have not seen it without snow on top of it since we first visited back in November and also now we could envision if some of our ideas for the wedding would work or not.

The best part? Free wine! We receive complimentary wine whenever we go since we are having our wedding there. Last Friday was one of the first beautiful clear blue sky and WARM days so by the time we got to the winery, we were pretty hot. Bethany picked for us a perfect hot summer day wine, their ’08 Traminette.

Tasting Notes: this white wine is crisp and best served chilled. has a clean but semi-sweet taste to it. not overly fruity or floral tasting. conversely it does not taste like a chardonnay that’s been sitting in oak barrels for too long nor does it have that stainless steel barrel taste either. perfect to drink by itself or with whatever you would like, definitely would not compete with food.

We still have to pick our wines for the wedding, but we have time!

PA, an alcohol controlled State

March 23, 2010 by jennilee in wine with 0 Comments

there are two things that you have probably figured out by now, that Eric and I love wine and bargains however living in PA does not allow us to maximize the benefits of these two loves! PA is an alcohol controlled State so we are not allowed to participate in wine clubs which is really frustrating!

We took a trip out to Napa Valley and Sonoma County a few years ago and kept finding some great cannot-find-in-the-local-wine-store wineries that we wanted to join but alas, when asked where we lived we always got the sad shake of the head.

The pricing in the State stores is not even that great however I will say that they have gotten a better handle on tasting notes and some decent bottles, I think they call it their “Wine Club”. They make signs in the stores with notes from their “Wine Club” which are not half bad. Most of the times though you will be hard pressed to find an international bottle that costs less than $10 unless you want Little Penguin or Yellow Tail.

Maybe we should just open-up a PO Box over in Jersey!

Dom Bardo 2007 Albarino

March 20, 2010 by jennilee in wine with 0 Comments

Last night enjoyed some of the recently re-stocked-in-fridge piave cheese with white truffle honey paired with the 2007 Dom Bardo Albarino from Spain. Not as big of a bite but still a medium body for this bottle

Eric made some fresh pesto with I think maybe call it double or triple the quantity of garlic than required…the Albarino did not stand-up well to it but when we put some marinated artichokes with the pesto it was a good pairing, still made the breath stink, glad it was just us!

Today is a gorgeous day outside…wish we had a patio or porch or SOMETHING to go sit and enjoy a glass of wine at instead of paying $9 for a glass at Tinto or Parc. One day, well have a porch…in the meantime, anyone having a BBQ soon? We’ll bring the wine! :)

Portuguese wine

March 12, 2010 by jennilee in wine with 1 Comment

So we tried our 2nd bottle of the case last night, Ciconia 2008 Syrah | Aragones (60% Aragones, 30% Syrah, 10% Touriga Nacional)

Tanins: A

Body: C

Would Re-Buy: Highly Doubtful

Tasting Notes: overall this wine did not open-up the way we had hoped it would. The initial nose to it made you believe it would be a full bodied wine but once you sipped it was almost watery but hit you with the tanins, a weird combo! Thought it would open-up after a bit but it never did.

Have not really tried out Portuguese wine before, anyone have any recommendations?

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