Thursday, August 25, 2005
Cool day - red wine
Hey, I got me a reader! On wine, so let's build on that.
It was a cool day today, and I discovered I was without a "cheap" red wine to drink. I have a few more expensive reds around, but this wasn't a celebration, this was just a day. So I went to my wine store and bought a few $10 reds. I know, $10 shouldn't be "cheap" - I remember when these wines were $6 or so - but they're $10 now. Sigh.
An aside - there's still a couple of <$10 wines I know of that are worth trying once to see if you like them. There's Charles Shaw's red at Trader Joe's, affectionately known as "3 buck Chuck". The first couple of swallows of this wine were bearable, but after that, I just didn't want to drink it. ("This is not a wine for drinking - this is a wine for laying down and avoiding!" - Monty Python) There's Yellow Tail Shiraz. Not bad, but I don't like Shiraz in general. So for me, that's out. Remember, your mileage may vary, and these bottles are cheap enough to buy and try.
So, back to my old stand-by "cheap" reds. I really like the wines of the Rhone valley, and 2 of my favorite everyday wines are Cotes du Rhone. Parallele "45" from Paul Jaboulet Aine, and Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone Rouge have been consistently my favorite everyday reds for about 6 years now (vintages 1998-2003), and the first good "cheap" wines I tried after my "Merlot" phase. (In the late 90s, even half-decent Merlots doubled in price, and were no longer "cheap".) The Cotes du Rhone wines are bright and young, and are light enough to go with most dinners, even chicken and strongly-flavored fish. There's a hint of the complexity you'll find in the finer wines of the Rhone region.
Each of these wines come from producers of much more famous, much finer and dignified offerings. Paul Jaboulet Aine produces Hermitage la Chappelle, which in good years can be the best wine in the world. Perrin also owns Chateau de Beaucastel, which makes a Chateauneuf de Pape which will change your whole appreciation of wine. (I've got one more bottle of the 1998 - I bought 3 and had 2 of them young, which made me a wine fan forever. I'm told I shouldn't open the last one for a few years yet, so I won't. But it's tempting.)
When it warms up a bit, I'll go back to whites. More next week.
It was a cool day today, and I discovered I was without a "cheap" red wine to drink. I have a few more expensive reds around, but this wasn't a celebration, this was just a day. So I went to my wine store and bought a few $10 reds. I know, $10 shouldn't be "cheap" - I remember when these wines were $6 or so - but they're $10 now. Sigh.
An aside - there's still a couple of <$10 wines I know of that are worth trying once to see if you like them. There's Charles Shaw's red at Trader Joe's, affectionately known as "3 buck Chuck". The first couple of swallows of this wine were bearable, but after that, I just didn't want to drink it. ("This is not a wine for drinking - this is a wine for laying down and avoiding!" - Monty Python) There's Yellow Tail Shiraz. Not bad, but I don't like Shiraz in general. So for me, that's out. Remember, your mileage may vary, and these bottles are cheap enough to buy and try.
So, back to my old stand-by "cheap" reds. I really like the wines of the Rhone valley, and 2 of my favorite everyday wines are Cotes du Rhone. Parallele "45" from Paul Jaboulet Aine, and Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone Rouge have been consistently my favorite everyday reds for about 6 years now (vintages 1998-2003), and the first good "cheap" wines I tried after my "Merlot" phase. (In the late 90s, even half-decent Merlots doubled in price, and were no longer "cheap".) The Cotes du Rhone wines are bright and young, and are light enough to go with most dinners, even chicken and strongly-flavored fish. There's a hint of the complexity you'll find in the finer wines of the Rhone region.
Each of these wines come from producers of much more famous, much finer and dignified offerings. Paul Jaboulet Aine produces Hermitage la Chappelle, which in good years can be the best wine in the world. Perrin also owns Chateau de Beaucastel, which makes a Chateauneuf de Pape which will change your whole appreciation of wine. (I've got one more bottle of the 1998 - I bought 3 and had 2 of them young, which made me a wine fan forever. I'm told I shouldn't open the last one for a few years yet, so I won't. But it's tempting.)
When it warms up a bit, I'll go back to whites. More next week.
# posted by Steve : 6:47 PM
