Taxes are done, how did you celebrate? PS: Cristal is SO 2009

I’m a little late with the post this week, which is ironic since I FINALLY made it to the tasting on time. Sorry about the delay; my boss kept asking me to do things yesterday. It was so annoying.

Last week I went to the “tax relief tasting” which was designed to offer different wines that would go hand-in-hand with the type of return you walked away with. Categories ranged from “Yahoo, the IRS owes me a ton of money and I’m going to splurge” to the “Oh my God, I just gave the IRS my first born”.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have an “I claimed my new speed boat as a write off and my Starbucks barista as a dependent so now I’m praying that the IRS doesn’t actually look as they’re signing my check” category…so I had to make do with the other bottles, but I let it slide because they were pretty good.

We started off with a prosecco as a celebration, but I wrote plenty about prosecco for the Easter tasting so I won’t spend a lot of time on that, but I will let you know that after much debate, Jim and I decided that a mimosa is still technically a mimosa when using prosecco, and in fact, most do already. I don’t think I’ll ever be a huge fan of champagne or prosecco, but luckily you really only drink it at celebrations…well, and weddings.

….Are all the women making a disgusted face yet? Don’t worry; I’ll say something charming later to make up for it.

After the prosecco, we moved onto the Stillwater Creek Chardonnay from Saviah Cellars. I’m not too good at pulling out the flavors of a white wine yet, but Jim tells me this was an oaked Chardonnay. At some point I’ll have to side-by-side oaked and unoaked to figure out what the taste differences are. There was also a buttery aftertaste in this one, which reminded me of popcorn or butterscotch. It wasn’t too overpowering though and I ended up appreciating it more than I’ve ever appreciated a white wine.

I’d strongly recommend this wine if you’re like me: trying to get into wine-tasting and develop your palate (yup, I’m learning wine terms like “palate” and…okay that’s all I’ve got). It’s got a lot of strong flavors to pull from and you’ll finish the bottle feeling like you understood it better than most…okay if you finish the bottle, you really won’t feel a lot, so maybe you should share with someone.

Unfortunately, it was the “Yahoo, the IRS owes me a small nation” wine so it wasn’t in my price range…or was it!?!?!? Okay, overdid it on the punctuation, but for the “let’s splurge” bottle, it was a nice surprise to find out that it was only $26.

Next we moved onto the 2005 Saint Laurent Syrah, which was good. This wine had a lot of different fruity flavors to it, and I noticed cherry and apricot, which the Saint Laurent website confirmed. In all honesty, I was semi-bored by this wine. It had a drier finish and left me with an “alright what’s next” feeling, which doesn’t seem like the mentality they’re going for.

For a $20 bottle, it was good, but wouldn’t be my first choice. On a side note, I hear their 2005 Syrah Reserve is amazing.

Up next was a French Cotes Du Rhone from Perrin & Fils. I don’t feel like looking it up, but I’m pretty sure that “Cotes Du Rhone” roughly translates to “Some grapes and stuff” and Perrin & Fils are two types of French sandwiches that the owner really likes.

…okay apparently I’m not allowed to do that. “Cotes Du Rhone” is directly translated to “Banks of the Rhone” which is in reference to the Rhone River valley. This region is known for it’s blends involving red and rose Grenache, and this was a blend of Grenache and Syrah grapes. “Perrin & Fils” just means Perrin & Sons…which is a lot less cool than what I was thinking. Luckily the actual wine was awesome. This was one of my favorites. I can’t believe I’m about to use a cliché like this, but it was a deep, full-bodied wine that would be great with red meat. I’m pretty sure I’ll always like any wine that you can describe as “good with red meat”.

At only $15 a bottle, this Cotes Du Rhone is a great choice.

Finally, we got to the “IRS took everything” bottle. I was a little surprised that we went in reverse order, thinking that the cheaper bottles should go first because the “good” ones would dwarf them. This wasn’t at all the case. The Cotes Du Rhone and this final bottle were my favorites. This was a Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina that only sells for $10 a bottle. It was great. Smooth and rich as the guy in the Dos Equis commercials, it tasted like it should be the expensive bottle of the bunch. I was a huge fan. All in all, I’d say it was a very sophisticated wine. Just kidding, calling a wine sophisticated still sounds stupid to me.

Next week I’ll be at “Bainbridge Uncorked”, checking out what the seven wineries on the little island have to offer. I hear good things. Let’s hope the weather holds up or my notes might be a little muddled.

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Tags: Bainbridge Uncorked, De-Vine Wines, happy hour, Mill Creek, wine