Wise Wine Alert

"A nicely crafted Chardonnay with a surprising eleagance at a very keen price. Unoaked, with a very attractive rounded pear and apple fruits, and a refresing citrus tang.perfect with chicken dishes" yada yada yada...............

I can keep this one short and sweet. Ringing in at just shy of eleven euros, this should be added to your summer sipping list right now.  

It does what the label says. Clean, crisp and yummy!

What caught my eye was the label of course, because I am not accustomed to buying a French Chardonnay. Well, maybe I am, but not one geared for the American market. So, again I fell for a label, going with my gut instinct. Knowing I was fond of the Chardonnay grape did not hurt. 

More summer sippers to add to the list in a few days!

Those are all the WiseWords I have for today.

WiseMóna

Nothing could be finer than a Grüner Veltliner............ in the morning

Alright, it is a little too early to be breaking out the wine, but surely, it is happy hour somewhere! With my never-ending quest to find exceptional wine I thought I would virtually share this fine summer sipper with you, my thirsty readers.

Kellermeister

Privat

Grüner Veltliner 

Kremser Goldberg

Trocken

€ 13.95

Before I get into the brix n' bones of it all I can give you a brief translation on the label. Even if you do not know the language, you should never be scared away from buying the wine. That would be a travesty.

Kellermeister: Name of the winery in Austria where this wine is produced. 

Privat: Means that this is part of their private label and is not in mass production.

Grüner Veltliner  (pronounced grooner felt-leaner) - is the name of the grape variety. Most commonly grown in Austria and Czech Republic, this wine is well known as being a food-friendly wine. Intended to be drunk young, it would be uncommon to find this type of wine more than a few years old. So, right now we should be drinking a 2008 or 2009 vintage. On a side note, a decent percentage of the Grüner Veltliner grapes grown west of the Danube in Austria are perfect for laying down to keep for a few years in your cellar, due to a higher content of minerals in the soil.

Kremser Goldgerg: is the name of the field/area where the grapes used for this particular vintage were grown. 

Trocken: means DRY. My favourite type of white wine.

Now that the technical details have been explained there is not much left to discuss except for how darn good n' drinkable this wine is. My advice is to first make sure it is adequately chilled. Leave it in an ice bucket for at least an hour or a few hours in the fridge. It will not taste as good as it should if it is room temperature.

Do you have a nice glass to pour it in? If not, then go get one. You can buy the wine and your wine glasses at www.cases.ie You can't drink Guinness out of a tin can and expect it to taste great, so why drink your wine out of a thimble sized glass? 

Seeing as you have to wait for your wine to chill, you have a few minutes to whip up the perfect dinner to go with this wine. A spicy pasta dish! We were amazed to find that the wine stood up to the heat of this dish we had for dinner last night. The chef loaded it with dried chili flakes and the wine did nothing but complement the flavours.

The wine has a nice yellow-straw kind of colour to it and the first sip tastes like.....more! Crisp fruit flavours like apple and a little citrus all balanced nicely with a lively acidity. I am sure that there will be plenty of summer sipping of this one done in my house and I am thinking it will fit the bill of 'goes well with everything'!

The thing you need to remember about wine, in my humble opinion, is as long as you like the taste of it then that is all that matters. 

Just remember one thing folks: Friends do not let friends drink White Zinfandel!

Those are all the WiseWineWords I have for today,

WiseMóna

Wise WINE Alert!

Magna del Brujo
2006
from the Calatayud region of Spain!

Sorry the label looks like hell - but that was the best one I could find out there on the World Wide Web :-)

I went off into town looking for a nice bottle of wine to have this evening with the Chef and forgot - it is against the law for any public houses or off license's to sell alcohol today - Good Friday.

So, I had to consult my little wine stash at home and was tickled pink to find this gem. I had picked it up around Christmas time and had forgotten about it!

Initially, I was thinking a Pinot Noir would have fitted the bill for dinner tonight, and this is in the same shape bottle - which is why I grabbed it off the shelf.

HOWEVER, it is no Pinot Noir!

Here is the concoction we were drinking tonight:

Garnacha Viñas Viejas 65%
Shiraz 15%
Tempranillio 15%
and my personal favourite
Manzuelo & Monastrell 5%

Ok - so it is not my favourite, I have never heard of these grapes! BUT, the others all blended together alone would have made a damn fine wine, so I can only imagine that the addition of the latter made this choice exceptional.

Some vaguely interesting information - the Wine has been aged for 5 months in French and American oak. It was 'bloody purple' when we poured it into our glasses at the dinner table and I knew it would be yummy based on colour alone. (I know, I have drank way toooooo much red wine to know this information!).

Think smoky, black cherry, blueberry, and a little vanilla. All this with the first whiff followed by a full-jammy bodied, ripe, intensely flavored wine with excellent depth, balance, and length.
Although this will live for many years in your wine cellar (I swear until at least 2018 or 2020)it is lovely to find a delicious and affordable (EUR 15.00) wine at our disposal!

OH - think MEAT when you have this with dinner! Big RED mooing steak, grilled pork chops, lucious lamb chops........................even good old Spaghetti and meatballs. For anyone that wants a good cry in their soup - we had the infamous Rondo Burger with ours and we enjoying a mild food coma for the rest of the evening!

Bottoms up!

That is all the WiseWords I have for today,

WiseMóna

Wise WINE Alert!

A Funky Ffrench Wine!
CLIQUE
Grenache Syrah
2006

Some friends of mine (Thanks Bernie & Jackie!) brought this to my birthday party last weekend and although copious amounts of alcohol was consumed we never got around to opening it that night.

Last night the Chef and I (delighted to get the little ones in bed a 1/2 hour early) popped this one open to enjoy with the lovely grilled lamb chops I had made for dinner. Stop laughing, I can cook whenever I want too - I just do not have too!

First of all - not to toot my own horn, but the lamb chops were divine. We both like them rare and bleating, so after pan searing them quickly, I topped them with Coleman's English Mustard and some lovely fresh garlic & parsley breadcrumbs. Into the oven for about 10 minutes on a high heat! The chef is happy that after almost 14 years of training, I am capable of cooking a decent meal :-)

Anyway, back to the wine. As usual, check the label! If I had seen this in the shop myself I would have reached for it, because the label is very cool. The description on the back of the bottle reads like you could be adding this to your wardrobe as your most recent accessory.

Truth be told, I could not think of an occasion where it would not go over as a big hit. As it is relatively young, it still had a load of fruit, and just enough tannins to make your mouth pucker. It went perfectly with the lamb dinner, but even lovelier was the face that it drank so nicely afterwards with a teeny tiny piece of the Chef's fudge!

I am not sure what the cost was on this one but from experience I feel it could be priced under 25 EUROS. A steal!

That is all the WiseWords I have for today,

WiseMóna

Wise WINE Alert!

Villa Recougne
White Bordeaux, 2007
€9.99

I know it is only mid January and here I am dreaming of the warm sunny days with nothing more to look forward to than a lazy afternoon at the beach with a nice book and a bottle of lovely wine to share with the Chef.

This is another of our favourites and judging by the price you can see why! It is one of those relatively cheap easy drinkers. With or without food!

We shared this with some friends a few nights ago and the Chef had prepared a platter of sauteed shrimp (loads of garlic and crushed chilies) and lightly grilled veggies and we drank way too much! Well, I am keeping with my New Years Resolution!

Everyone always says that you need to drink white wines when having fish, chicken etc. but I never follow that rule. I like to drink what ever tastes good. Look for it, stock up on it and enjoy every tasty drop.

That is all the WiseWords I have for today,

WiseMóna

Wise WINE Alert

Paco & Lola
Albariño 2007
€ 11.99

What a DELICIOSO Wine! Print out this page and make an effort to stock up for the warmer months. OK, you can tell from looking at the label, that YES, once again I fell prey to "pretty label" again. I had a good feeling about this because it was an Albariño which the Chef and I are more than fond of, and boy was I right.

Paco & Lola wine is grown and created in the Rias Baixas wine region in the northwest of Spain and one of Spain’s leading ‘Denominations of Origin’ and a region that has been going through a period of revolutionary change and growth in recent years.

Crisp, clean - grapefruity yumminess! Let's hope we get a lovely sunny summer and you will see me mention its name several times. We will be drinking it by the bucket all summer l'd say!

Oh, and on a side not - the label is creative, clean & almost simple. Awesome marketing! It worked, and so does the wine!

That is all the WiseWords I have for today,

WiseMóna

Wise WINE Alert!

Bourillon Dorleans
Vouvray 2007
France

Another lovely wine to share with my fellow foodies. Thankful that Sunday evening was finally here and the kids in bed asleep at 7pm, the Chef & instructed me to pick a nice bottle of wine to have with the yummy pasta dish he was throwing together! I opened the fridge and this was the first bottle I pulled out!

In fairness we do have a love affair with Vouvray. To be honest, neither himself or myself can recall a vouvray that we have had that we did not enjoy a great deal if not love!

This wine set us back 11 euro and it was most definitely worth every cent. It is crisp, it is clean, it is very very refreshing. There is a slight hint of pear and at first sip I was afraid it may be a little too much with our pasta dish, BUT the chef had added a little heat to the dish and all was perfect!

So, I would definitely look for this one. At this price, I can imagine this would be a welcome Christmas present for anyone I know!

That is all the WiseWine Words I have for today,

WiseMóna