Wine
 

I've never been much of a wine drinker. Whenever I do drink it, I've usually chosen a chardonnay -- something sweet. I like sweet wine. Obviously I have not developed a wine palate yet. :) I always said I hated red wine, but hubby got a bottle of Turning Leaf merlot from someone on his route for Christmas, and it was yummy! I went to the store to get more, but alas, it was a different year and YUCK, that one just was not good.

So, I decided to try something else. I picked up this:
http://www.epicurious.com/images/art...boxwines_3.jpg
Wine in a box -- well, it's good for folks like me, who are just going to have a couple glasses at a time. My hubby doesn't drink. And you know, it's not bad!

I just have to be careful, you know. I can drink 5 beers and still be in command of all my senses (and memory!) but for some reason wine kicks my ass. :)

A couple nice stores nearby have wine tastings once a week - I understand it's a networking event, not just a drinking event. I think I might like to check it out. I might need to learn a little bit more about wine first though.

Crikey, is that Hardy's Shiraz, from South Australia? Made by the Hardy family, local socialite/snobs.
Enjoy! responsibly.

Yup, I thought about you and Ali when I bought it. :)

Not bad, the equivalent of 4 bottles for $18, right there on my grocery store shelf. :D

Oh I love Hardy's shiraz.

I also have a penchant for the old Wolfblas

There are many wine rating systems out there and others may like to contribute theirs.
Here's mine:
10 - Gifted (like life)
..9 - Extremely enjoyable (like love)
..8 - Very enjoyable (like friendship)
..7 - Enjoyable (like time to oneself)
..6 - Likeable, with food
..5 - Palatable, for fast food
..4 - Wine cooler mix
..3 - For medicinal use only
..2 - Disinfectant to make water potable
..1 - Shark repellant
..0 - Chemical warfare agent

I prefer wine in a box to wine in a bottle. The packaging makes it taste better, and it's cheaper, and you can drink the box over a couple of weeks and it won't go bad. There are good brands out there too. You don't have to drink the generic supermarket stuff.

What Glatt said.

Dana, I stopped drinking Wolf Blass after his drink driving incidents. But, strangely, I can't find any details on the net.

I dont know anything about that. I dont know anything about the people behind wolf blass:)

Just going by memory, there were two - more likely three - cases of serious drink driving - well above the limit, repeat offense type things.
I guess it means he is going to know wine, but if they are using someones name as a brand I expect that person to behave better than a league footballer.
There are plenty of nice wines.

I like Wine. Have never been allowed to buy it in a box.....there's a whole shitting the bed legend from jinx's childhood memory of some neighbor...so every time i bring it up...she's all like....You'll shit the bed! and I'll have to leave you!

seriously, though,...I like Merlot. doesnt have to be real expensive...I used to get Canyon Oaks Merlot for $7.99 1.5ML. didn't suck.

I'm getting deja vu.....has this thread been done?

Beers are usually 4-6% alcohol per drink, most wine is 10-15% (ours usually average from 12-13.5% ) So you are AT LEAST doubling the alcohol, if you drink full glasses, and as fast as you would normally drink beer.

The wine tastings ARE to learn. The people who know more about wine are usually very willing to share their knowledge, at least that has been my experience. Tastings are always good because you can compare 3-4 different wines at the same time, not a bottle at a time, sips at a time :) If you do go, tho, don't wear perfume/cologne it affects "the nose of the wine". Some wine experts can get offended, and even ask you to leave.

I have a rating system for wine - it's based on the difference between the cost of the wine, and the cost of the wine with my supermarket club card.

So, if it's normally $14 a bottle, but with a club card it's on sale for $9, that's a 5-point wine. If it's normally $28 a bottle, and there's no club card discount, that's a zero-point wine. I only drink 3-points or higher.

Cheap? Yes I am!

Yes, but a wine glass holds about half as much as a can of beer. Therefore, 1 glass of wine = 1 can of beer, as far as alcohol consumption.

You need a bigger wine glass!

Yes, most wine servings are smaller, however, I have some red wine glasses here that hold 400+ml, so that is more than the average can of beer at 355ml. The wine glasses can be deceiving, making you think " I only had 2 glasses" in actual fact you had 2 glasses the size of Texas, therefore you really had 4 or 5 servings. :) Add that to the double or triple the alcohol and you are in for a surprise when you stand up LOL.

* One 12 fl oz (355 mL) bottle of beer or wine cooler
* One 5 fl oz (148 mL) glass of wine
* One mixed drink containing 1.5 fl oz (44 mL) of 80-proof hard liquor, such as gin, whiskey, or rum

Its kinda like the meat serving size (a deck of cards is an average portion), yet most steaks you can buy in the store (or in a restaurant) are wayyyyyyy bigger. :)

xoxo, that's phenomenal!

Here is a link to a study I thought was interesting :P As I work in the booze industry, I have to keep up on this kind of thing. It was just the * what they actually drank, and what they thought they drank* that caught my attention.

http://www.alac.org.nz/InpowerFiles/...e3fb0d39f2.pdf

This is going to sound funny -- but I only own one wine glass! It's a cheap thing that my son gave me for Christmas one year (dollar store, I guess) and it's got snowmen and santas and holly berries on it. :) I'm pretty sure it's about 5 ounces, but just out of curiosity, maybe I'll measure.

We usually split the steaks in half, too -- two strip steaks between the four of us. Yum!

Yes, that is an interesting report. As a...well, a person who enjoys knocking back a few on special occasions (like on days that end in Y) I've always been a stickler for keeping track of how much I've imbibed. That is one reason I never get mixed drinks at bars--you never know how "friendly" your bartender is feeling that night, y'know? I've had many a hangover after I thought I'd only had three drinks (and it was more like six).

I've had some pretty silly ways to do this too, like keeping beer bottlecaps or can tabs in my pocket so I can check at some point to see whether I'd be popping open a 5th or 6th. :)

"I've had some pretty silly ways to do this too, like keeping beer bottlecaps or can tabs in my pocket so I can check at some point to see whether I'd be popping open a 5th or 6th."

That is a great way to do it! My hubby uses that too, I have washed many a bottle cap!

That is a great idea.

It is well known that having five drinks greatly increases your chance of having a sixth drink, but it is less widely known that having six drinks greatly increases your chance of losing count.

(Unlike a very German friend of mine: "I had five point seven liters of beer in six hours and twenty minutes"... direct quote that still packs me up.)

When Brown Brother's comes in a box, I guess I will buy it, but until then its bottles with corks for me.

Moscato and Zibibbo are my favs at the moment, super sweet. Zibibbo comes in a champayne size bottle and I get two of my glasses to one of those big bottles.

So, Im not lying when I say I only have 2 glasses of wine a nite :)

Moscato is only 6% though, so you couldn't get pissed on one bottle...could you?

Nah, not likely.

Merlots improve by keeping them around a couple more years sitting in the bottle. Preferably horizontal so the cork absolutely never dries out.

Reds in general smooth out if you cellar them like that for a couple years... even five years. They contain more tannins -- they taste astringent, puckery -- to start with, from being reds, made with the grapeskins. These tannins slowly react inside a sealed bottle to stop being puckery and start adding, well, depth and complexity. And they get smoother and smoother.

A wine tasting is a good way to gather some experience in this stuff. Mostly, it will show you some other stuff you like -- new experiences.

I like a merlot that's gotten some age to it. Ravenwood's Merlot cellars well. Kept around for a few years, it's a lot smoother than drinking it right out of the store. Cabernets (Cabernet Sauvignon) are reds I like better still, and there are like thousands of Cabs out there. You'll probably find one you really like, and a little later you'll find another.

Burgundies tend to make me twitch unless taken with beef dishes. Hey, burgundy beef, whaddaya know... but The Roast Beef Of Old England serves too.

White wines, with much less tannin, don't improve very much with age. They might benefit from another year's cellaring time, but probably won't get much nicer after that. I'm very fond of Central Coast Californians like Mirassou.

Since you like 'em sweet, try a genuine French Bordeaux -- they run sweetly complex. Bordeaux isn't just one wine; they are various blends, and very tasty. Or, in the same school, an American Meritage, which is just our wine marketers' idea of how to pronounce Bordeaux. They made the name up to sound impressive. You like the one, you'll like the other.

There are people who get really culty about their wines. Some of these creatures become capitalized Full-Fledged Wine Bores and can make you pretty durn tired. But really, it's all about what wines please your palate. Drink those, cook with the less fancy ones that you also drink just for plain dinners -- where you figure the Tuesday night din-din only calls for the vin ordinaire.

Nowadays is a good era to be drinking wine. Winemaking regions are all around the globe, both hemispheres. Australian table wine has long ceased to be a mere Monty Python punchline.