Happy Valentine’s Day! As Art Predator and Wine Predator, I’m on the prowl for good wine and good adventures! May your Valentine’s Day be full of joyous adventures with fine wine, good times, and good friends!
Have an adventurous Valentine’s Day! Cheers!
Remember to celebrate Valentine’s Day every day with romance, adventure, and fun! That might mean sparkling wine and fancy dinners or something as simple as a heart shaped bagel and a foot rub!
How do you like to celebrate Valentine’s Day? Will you be opening any special wine? We began our celebration last Sunday with steak and lobster paired with Chalk Hill Chardonnay and Cantara Cellars Franknvine, and we’ll keep celebrating over the ling weekend with wine from Steven Kent (leftovers from tomorrow’s tasting!) and Chile too!
No matter how you celebrate Valentine’s Day this year–with red, white, rose, or bubbles!– a toast to YOU, my readers and subscribers! Cheers!
Oh and can you help ME go on an adventure? Just vote here for me to go to Chile where I will blog my heart out for you about the food, the wine, and the adventure!
Are you tempted by Tempranillo? I am! And I’m not the only one! In fact, more people would be tempted by tempranillo if they tried it.
Today, November 8, is International Tempranillo Day–the perfect day to give Tempranillo a try! As Tempranillo is the fourth most planted wine grape planted in the world, with most of it grown in Spain, it’s easy to celebrate Tempranillo Day by simply opening and enjoying one.
One of my favorite wines from 2011 was a Tempranillo from Continue reading →
This month we’re harvesting wines like crazy and RSVPing to tastings and other events! I’ve got lots of exciting samples to review including the very festive Enza Proseco ($15) and a number of twitter tastings and events on the calendar. Remember, for these twitter tastings, all you need to do to participate is check out the hashtag# for the event on twitter. (And no you don’t have to be ON twitter to check out what’s happening on twitter! Continue reading →
I realize now that fixing a two traditional holiday Thanksgiving or Christmas meals –first a ham dinner then a turkey dinner– and tasting a bunch of wines with the food really was quite a challenge. If I was a stay at home wine blogger (and not teaching 75% time, working on a PhD, and being a mom!), I am sure I could have accomplished it before Thanksgiving! As it is, I made due with a steady stream of tweets and facebook posts to share what I was tasting and learning. And I know thanks to search engines, people will be finding these posts for years to come!
So what did I learn about ham and wine?
The big surprise was how well the ham dinner went with the 2007 Sonoma County St Francis Old Vines Zinfandel (under $20). I knew I would like this wine with turkey but on a whim I decided to open it. As I tasted through the line-up, I didn’t expect much of the zin. However, the chemical reaction between the ham and the zin was wonderfully tasty!
So much so that if I was to recommend one wine to bring, especially f you didn’t know what was going to be served, I’d go with a zinfandel because it works with ham, turkey, appetizers including blue cheese and crackers, as well as red meats like prime rib.
My second favorite for the ham from this line-up is the 2010 M. Chapoutier Bellaruche Cotes-du-Rhone. Personally, I really enjoy dry roses with ham (here’s a discussion of a dry rose from Bordeaux with ham). There is something about the combo of the spice and sweetness and salitiness that makes this work so well. I also tried this the next morning with ham and eggs and a cranberry pecan scone and I would definitely recommend this wine for brunch or one of those breakfast for dinner kind of nights.
While this wine wasn’t my favorite with the ham, it’s a great choice for appetizers. I love it with pate, cheese and crackers.
2009 Craggy Ridge Pinot Noir ($35-45) As I wrote when I reviewed it with turkey, this is a lovely, delightful complex pinot noir, full of earth and moss and violets and chocolate and tarragon, truly a wonderful Pinot Noir from New Zealand, lush, sensual. I wouldn’t bring this wine to a big holiday meal with tons of people– save it for when you can focus on it and savor it! I bet it would be better with a pork loin or chop than with salty ham.
How did I get from Idaho and Walla Walla back to California for the Petite Sirah Symposium? By way of some Oregon Pinot Noir of course!
Read on to get a taste and see where I went and what I did; more in depth blog posts to come about my stops in Willamette Valley AVAs including Barrel Fence in the Dundee Hills (pictured) and Coleman Vineyards in the McMinnville AVA (photos below).
When I last checked in from my road trip, I had arrived on the coast of Oregon following a few days in the Walla Walla AVA (American Viticultural Area) and around Boise (the Snake River AVA)… Read More
I’m the Wine Predator aka the Art Predator and I will be your guide to stalking, finding, and slurping delightful affordable and drinkable wines!
I love to travel, camp, and eat and drink well, and I will share my adventures in dining and drinking and unusual places! Some of these posts I will import from one of my other blogs, Art Predator.
I’m no wine snob–merely someone who loves wine and writing, and who wants to learn more about wine while writing about it. My wine posts will cover some beginning basics and help us all grow to enjoy wine with more sensitivity and sophistication. I especially love good deals on great wines!
Bring on your questions! If I don’t know the answer, I wil find it!
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 