Jumping in

Posted on November 12, 2006 by Sonadora

Tonight we drank a bottle of 2004 Roshambo Taylor Vinyeard Zinfandel. This was our first bottle of this wine, though I think we have 2 more cellared. I suppose we probably tasted it on our actual visit to Roshambo though one cannot be so certain. We visited 26 vineyards in our 7 days in the Sonoma area. I did enjoy Roshambo while there. The atmosphere was entirely different from any other winery I have ever visited. Very modern tasting room, lots of young people, just a completely different vibe. We joined their wine club, and have received at least one, if not two, shipments from them so far.

Alright, back to the wine. I made an eye-of-the-round roast tonight with broccoli for myself and peas(yuck) for my husband and added a rice pilaf to finish out the meal. I’m still working on pairing food with wine, but thought a nice hearty red with the roast would work splendidly. And I was right! This wine is big and fruity to start, with a little peppery kick at the end. I did notice that as we worked our way through the bottle, the pepper finish was less noticeable and the fruity flavors (tastes a little like cherries to me) made an even bigger appearance. Very full flavored with lots of body, running an alcohol content of 15.4%, definetly not for a lighter meal! It probably could have stayed in our cellar for a little while longer. I will keep the other bottle hanging around. This cost us $28 minus the club discount. A great wine, but a little steep of a price tag to be an everyday wine for us. I’ll enjoy taking the next bottle out of the cellar.

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Filed under: Red, Roshambo, Vineyards, Zinfandel | Comments Off on Jumping in

Voila! A new wine blog.

Posted on November 12, 2006 by Sonadora

Welcome to my wine blog! I’ve recently discovered the world of wine blogs and I have much enjoyed exploring them over the past few weeks. In fact, I was so inspired that I’m finally joining the blogging world myself and adding my thoughts about wine.

As my profile says, I dream of some day owning my own vineyard. I’ve been saying that long before I even appreciated wine, mainly because I grew weary of folks asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up, so I came up with, what I thought at the time was an outlandish answer, being that I was 16 and had spent my whole life living in New England. Apparently, I’m “grown-up” now, yet, despite graduating college and law school, I still tell people I want to own a vineyard. So my dream has grown with me.

My love affair with wine began over a bottle of Schmitt-Sohne Riesling, vintage 2000 somewhere in the summer of 2001. Watch this because it makes me laugh: Schmitt-Sohne Commercial and it’s apropo for the season. And thus my long hot summer days of drinking this lovely riesling in the blue bottle began with my 4 best friends from college. Thanks to the great fortune of one of their mothers being a wine critic, we were kept in constant supply of very excellent wines, though I doubt we were savvy enough to realize it at the time. We still drink the Schmitt-Sohne, though nothing compares to those lazy days in the summer, when we thought college could never end. For around $7 a bottle, this is just a great wine, very light and crisp with lots of fruit flavors. My father was kind enough in my college years to procure it by the case for me, clearly quite bemused by my affinity for wine, given that he is mostly a beer and whiskey type of guy.

Enough waxing poetic about the good old days when my dad supplied my alcohol. Let’s fast forward to now. I am recently married and I was lucky enough to meet my now husband before his own taste in libations was developed. Thus, he too is an avid wine-drinker. In fact, we spent the better part of our honeymoon in the Russian River Valley (probably not a great idea given what we spent while we were there,) but c’est la vie, we will be in plenty of good wine for a while to come.

I hope to use this blog to chronicle our wine tasting adventures and development of our knowledge. We drink 5-7 bottles a week, so I believe I will have plenty to write about. Bear with me, I’m learning and I won’t pick out tar, dirt or other such descriptors for what I am tasting, but I will give my honest opinion about whether or not I like something and why.

And in a tribute to my Irish heritage, Slainte!

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