Tag: fruit

Sweet Cat

Leave a comment

The joy of doing this is discovering wines you didn’t even know existed.  This will continuously be a lifelong journey with no end in sight.  And as daunting as that may sound on the surface, that’s exactly how it should be.  Unless there is some magical ending, there should never be a final resting place.  Well unless it’s a with a fabled bottle of vino!

This brings me to the wines from Tussock Jumper.   Until a few days ago, they were nowhere on my radar.  I love uncovering something new.

TussockFrontTussockBack

The simple reason I saw drawn to the bottle is because of the cat on the label.  In addition to that, there was a plastic baggie with a collectors item attached at the top of it.  Upon further investigation I saw it was a refrigerator magnet.  Without any hesitation I bought this bottle with little regard to the type of wine it was.  They sold me.

I was in the South American wines section of the shop, so it was most likely Malbec or something similar.  But I was blinded by the animal!   Along with animals, wine is one of my real joys in life.  And a combination of a beautiful creature pictured on a bottle will usually get me every time.  Well done.

TussockCatTussockMagnet

The magnet is now hanging gloriously on the refrigerator along with all its other magnet pals.

TussockOpened

And without belaboring the point, how was my sipping experience?  Well I only thought the wine was ok.  I gave it a few minutes to breathe and it started to improve with time.  But it never really got anywhere.   The label mentions aromas and flavors of berries, fruits, and chocolates.   So I will assume blackberry will be notated a lot.  It did have that jammy flavor with maybe some cocoa if I didn’t think so much about it.  But nothing came of this for me.

TussockWithCCC

In honor of National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day yesterday, I hoped to heighten the wine with a piece of cookie or two, and sadly that did not happen.

On a warm Summer’s day this would be ok to drink.  It’s more medium bodied, with it’s combination of Malbec an Shiraz, which can usually be good.  But not here.

I did notice on their wine list, that this varietal is not even listed.

Could it be I’m not the only one that wasn’t floored by the Mendoza?  Or maybe it just wasn’t a huge hit?

However, there’s so much to love about their website.   They have a different animal representing each of their wines.  And it’s also laid out by country.  It’s broken down by recipe, food pairings, grape synopsis, and the vineyards.  You can’t get much more user-friendly than that.   And their tasting guide breaking down the full to light bodied choices, from red to white is magnificent.

Here’s where you can find their wines.

I’m intrigued.  Even though this bottle was disappointing, I will need to do some poking around.  This could become quite the adventure.  The concept is great and I expect many of the wines will turn out the same.

Thanks so much.

Best,

Ideen

The Bulgarian Beaut

5 Comments

Beauts

It was suggested to me that I start talking about the whites.  With a few exceptions, my posts have revolved around the reds, and many of them of the full-bodied variety.

As the temperatures increase, you better believe more of these are going to be discussed.  I’ve stated before that I love lots of oak in reds.   The opposite could not be more true with whites. It’s an important detail going forward.

So it brings me great pleasure to be talking about the Sauvignon Blanc From Bulgariana Wines.  And it’s a pleasure.

I stopped into my local Total Wine in Towson, MD, knowing they had a massive selection of every grape imaginable, and was immediately helped by a very friendly staff member.  I wish I had gotten her name.   I mentioned I was looking for a white, specifically a Sauv Blanc, for a blog I was doing, and she gave me a few wonderful suggestions.

I settled on the Bulgariana as it had the most appealing label, and even more exciting, in the synopsis there was a mention of pineapple!  How awesome is that?  I’ve never knowingly had the pleasure of sampling a wine that had pineapple or a similar exotic fruit in it.  So I had to try.  This is part of the fun.   There will be so many unknowns in wine tasting, and that’s one of the best part of a wine tasters journey.

I couldn’t wait to take this home and chill it in the fridge for a few hours.  When I finally opened it, the exciting aromas just hit my heart.  It’s just one of those indescribable feelings.  It might be too good for words.   But I’m going to try.  It’s that moment right when the bottle is about to be uncorked, and you just know something amazing is about to happen.  That’s a wonderful high.  And this is one of those beautiful moments.  I can’t tell you what every scent or flavor it, but it was heavenly.  Oh my goodness.  And even the back of the label mentions exotic fruits, but doesn’t say exactly which ones. Maybe I’m not meant to know. Or maybe I will know in time!

The suggestions are to enjoy this with a salad, fish dishes, pizza, and pasta.  Now the Sauvignon Blanc’s are always a welcome pairing with lighter fish entrees since most of the Blanc’s are light to medium themselves.  Pretty simple!

yummers

As you can see, I chose to savor this alone.  But this is a wine that deserves a wonderful food pairing.   It’s light enough to be drank with friends, but it’s worthy of a delicious meal to go with it.

I have never seeked out whites and they’ve never been my first choice.  But this bottle was something else.   It’s a great way bottle to enjoy during the warm weather months.     I also look forward to trying more of Bulgariana’s wines in the near future.  In the meantime, this one will be celebrated in all her glory.   And at only $10.99, I got more than my money’s worth.

Crab

Enjoy the spring.

Kindest,

Ideen

Pinot Pals

Leave a comment

prisma

I don’t always go into my posts with a plan of attack.  It’s a blog.  It’s mean to be fun.   And the adventure is not knowing what I’m going to write about next.  Sometimes I find the wine.  Sometimes it finds me.   The bonus is any complements I may find, to go with that selection, happenstance or not.  Well all of that came together today, with the 2011 Prisma Pinot Noir from Chile and distributed/supplied by Brazos Wine Imports.

I would like to thank Chesapeake Wine Company for their recommendation of this bottle.   I will admit, that the label had me sold.  As you can see above, I wasn’t alone in that sentiment.    The hippiness and pizzazz of the image caught my eye.   And as we approach Spring, this is a kind of lighter wine that may appeal more, than the fuller ones we drink in the colder seasons.

From there, I read the owners review. It may be hard to read in the notes above, but, this is a light bodied, fruit oriented wine, containing strawberries and cherries.   The kicker, for me, was that orange and floral peel smells were detected.   I was intrigued.   Funny how things work out though…

Minutes after purchasing this bottle, I stopped by a fundraiser/bake sale nearby, and one of the items for sale, were candied orange peels.  I’m thinking to myself, how serendipitous is that?

orange

And here is how I paired my vino.    Now, for the wine itself, it’s not my favorite.   When I smell it, I do detect a small amount of oak, as the bottle describes.  For reds, my mantra has always been, the more oak the better!  When there’s a small scent of it, you may not always find it when drinking.  And that’s what happened, for me, here.   The candied orange peels definitely heightened something after I had a sip.  And the after taste lingered for a little while, which is a good thing.   And while I do like light wines, this one did not wow me completely.   I could also say it tastes like strawberry preserves, which is charming.  But, something just seemed missing.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn’t blown away.

And at a price tag of $16, which is reasonable, I wanted a little something more.   If this were $10 and under, I might feel better about this purchase.

But, for overall label, and for me having candied orange feels (which were awesome by the way), I am happy I tried a little something different.  And that’s the fun of wine drinking.  There’s so many to choose from, it’s sometimes just fun to go with your instincts, or in this case, a beautiful label.

All the best,

Ideen