Bargain Shiraz

Posted on March 8, 2009 by Sonadora

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from the Terlato Wine Group.

I’m feeling very non-committal about my wine selections these days.  One day I’m craving the crisp whites I love, the net I want a huge red wine. Must be the weather which will not make up its mind as to weather we are still in winter or have moved onto spring.  My poor bulbs that are popping up, I hope they survive this cold snap. With that in mind, I chose the 2006 Guardian Peak Shiraz from South Africa to drink the other night.  It had a screw cap closure, clocked in at 14.5% alcohol by volume, and retails for around $11.  I know you can get the Wallaby wine for around $7 a bottle, but seriously, do yourself a favor and spend the extra $4 and get this instead.

I loved the nose on this wine.  It smelled of smoke, anise, cedar, earth, chocolate, funk in a good way, and the slightest hint of dark berries.  It reminded me just a bit of some kind of pipe tobacco.  I found the wine to be very smoky in the mouth as well.  I also got flavors of blackberries, black cherries, some  strawberry, earth, and plums.  The fruit showed as quite tart, the wine had nice tannins, and good acidity.  Serve with your favorite BBQ.

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Filed under: Red, Shiraz, South Africa, Terlato, Wine | 1 Comment »

When the Moon Hits Your Eyes like a Big Pizza Pie…

Posted on March 25, 2007 by Sonadora

We’ve had some company with us this week, so I decided to make some homemade pizza as a slightly fancier mid-week dinner. And with it, we started out with a bottle of 2004 Alderbrook Carignane.

The wine came in a club shipment and didn’t have a price, but the 2003 was $19, so I would guess it was around the same price. It was 14.1% alcohol by volume and had a real cork closure.

On the nose there were plums, dark berries, spice, leather and oddly enough, the scent of a forest. The aromas just kept coming as the glass sat out. In the mouth the wine was incredibly smooth and is drinking really well, though the layers of flavors make me think it could age for quite a bit longer. In the mouth there were dark fruits, black cherries and blackberries.

Overall the wine had a great mouth feel and I wish we had more of it hanging around. I picture this with pasta sauce based dishes, the spice would be a good compliment to the sauce.

I was poking around the Alderbrook website this afternoon and discovered that Alderbrook is part of the Terlato Wine Group. I wonder if it’s possible that the one bottle of Terlato that we drank back in February came in a club shipment? It was a mystery to me as to where it came from since I am 100% positive that we did not go to the Terlato Vineyard and it has been driving me nuts ever since we drank it trying to figure out how it arrived in our wine rack. However, it might make sense that it came from an Alderbrook shipment since they are all part of the same group. I guess mystery solved, finally. Here’s to hoping that I will no longer have the lapses of my spreadsheet now that I am faithfully using Cellar Tracker.

Filed under: Alderbrook, Carignane, Cellar Tracker, Red, Terlato | 2 Comments »

On the Mend

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Sonadora

I’m finally feeling well enough to sit up and focus long enough to write up a post. I think I’ve had the plague. It’s been a super fun week, given the I’ve only been at my job for 5 months so I had all of 3 sick days to use to get over whatver this was…

Anyway, back to the wine. The other night (don’t really remember when) we drank this bottle of 2005 Terlato Pinto Grigio. I’m assuming we picked this up last summer though to be honest I have no recollection of visiting the vineyard and it’s the only bottle in our collection, so I’m stumped. There was only one other vineyard where we bought but one bottle and that was due to the fact that the least expensive bottle there was $39…a little out of our everyday price range!

So this bottle. Cost us $22, is 13.6% alcohol by volume and had a screwcap closure. On the nose this bottle was very aromaic, showing a melon and white flowers. In the mouth there was more melon and a bit of spice. The wine actually surprised me in the mouth, as it was heavier than I expected from the nose and actually had a touch of an oily feel to it. Overall, a well done Pinot Grigio. I served this with Chinese take-out, which consisted of Seshwan Beef, Spicy Shrimp and Sweet and Sour Chicken. It was a pretty good match for the meal, with the melon giving a good balance to the spicy food. I also wrote down that I’d like to drink this on the porch in the summer.

Filed under: Pinot Grigio, Terlato, White | Comments Off on On the Mend