June 2019 – Wine Down Time

Happy Sunday!! I hope your weekends went well and you enjoyed some down time (wine down time included…shameless attempt there). I want to start this blog by saying that no matter how bad a day you have and how little you have in your refrigerator to eat, you should never take it out on the wine. That said, I had a stupendously bad day this past Thursday and didn’t have any food in the refrigerator. I opened my 2014 Devil’s Backbone Chardonnay while rummaging through the refrigerator and pantry. Note that if I hadn’t said it before, I like medium oak Chardonnays so this might not be for everyone. As best I can tell, it was an enjoyable oak-based wine apple and maybe pear, but take this review with a grain of salt. I paired it with Crunchy Cheetos. I don’t even want to know what the orange Cheetos powder is made of, but I didn’t let that stop me. The wine did the best it could. I didn’t. This wine can be found at Kroger for less than $20 per bottle. Here’s to the ability to plan and to stocked refrigerators everywhere.

Happy Sunday! I hope you all have had a relaxing weekend. I have been on a new diet as of late. This diet consists of high fat, some sugar and carbohydrates here and there, and little to no vegetables. It also encourages little to no exercise. This diet is keto-friendly, sugar-friendly, carb-friendly, and lazy-person friendly. It’s the Miss Congeniality of diets really. What’s odd is that I’ve gained a few pounds, but I’m thinking that’s probably just muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat you know. One of the staples of late has been pasta, including Palio’s lasagna. I paired my lasagna with the 2015 Longford Estate Vintage Reserve Pinot Noir from Monterey, California. This Pinot was light in color and finish. It did have considerable minerality to it along with cherry and maybe even strawberry tones as well. I really enjoyed the lasagna, but can’t say as much for this particular Pinot. The spicy Pinots from Napa or the mild Oregon Pinots, that are a bit smoother on the palate, are more my style. I don’t typically like those with a heavy mineral focus like this one had. It could be that my newly-formed diet of bad carbs and sugars has affected my palate. Perhaps that’s a sign to start cleaning my overall diet and palate. Lesson learned, implementation of learnings tbd. If you are interested in a more mineral-based Pinot Noir, you can find this wine at Kroger grocery stores for around $20 per bottle.