It's Friday. Movie time. Watch a great movie about the TRUE story that brought CA to the forefront of wine making - It's called "Bottle Shock."

It's Friday. The weekend has arrived. It's movie time!

The 2008 movie, Bottle Shock, has been one of my all time favorite movies since it was released. Not only do I love the content, but the actors are amazing, along with the compelling true story that it recounts. Bill Pullman, Chris Pine and Alan Rickman star in the movie.

Have any of you heard of the Judgment of Paris? It was a 1976 blind wine tasting between CA wines and the never-to-be-beat French wines. The catch? The panel was made up of the premier French palates in the wine business. However, the outcome was a game-changer for American wine production.

American historians at the Smithsonian were so amazed by both the fallout and the rise of CA winemaking following this epic 1976 blind wine tasting, that they officially deemed it a major historical event in American history. The two wining bottles are now on display in Washington, D.C.

Bottle Shock beautifully portrays the love and passion that accompanies viticulture (the science, production and study of grapes). The more I drink wine and learn about it, the more it amazes me every day.

All that to say, the plot is compelling, the actors are pro's, the scenery is gorgeous and you will want nothing more than a great glass of chardonnay and some guacamole by the time the movie is over.

Bottle Shock can be found on Netflix or purchased online.

Cheers!

I can find good wine at the Grocery Store??!! YES. Stick with these brands and you are good to go......

Life is too short to drink bad wine. Want good wine at a decent price and easily accessible? Below is the Wine Momma Grocery Store Go-To Wine List, courtesy of my countless hours of research. :-)

My favorite grocery store wine brand is Cupcake. Such a smart outfit. Yes, they are based in CA but their grapes, based on the varietal, come from the region in the world that is well known for that varietal. So, you get the value and expertise of that area without the high price. Their Sauv Blanc is my fav and is currently priced at $10.99. Also be sure to try their Chianti or, honestly, any of their varietals. I am pleased with them all.

Bogle Vineyards is the best bet for the best reds for your dollar. Bogle has a great Table Red Wine that can go with all sorts of dinners but my favorite of theirs is the Petite Sirah. It has true flavors and offers great complexity at a lower price point of $11.99.  Also be sure to try the Bogle Olde Vine Zinfandel, also $11.99.

In terms of Bogle white wines, they also have great choices - stick with the Chardonnay and Sauv Blanc, both at $9.99.

It kills me to say this but, yes, Barefoot Wines has some decent wines. All of their wines at my local Publix are a whopping $6.85. Their Pink Moscato, for those of you that love the sweet, sweet wines, is amazing but really sweet. Also check out their Sauv Blanc and Chardonnay. I chose to aerate the Chardonnay due to it tasting a bit too oak-like for me, but tell me what you think.

Are you a riesling lover? Try the Relax Riesling - only $9.99!

Need a Sparkling Wine for a special occasion?

Chandon at $16.99 is your best bet!

Here are my favorite wines/brands at a bit higher price point (around $20) but still in your local grocery aisle!
Joel Gott - Sauv Blanc and Cabernet
Kim Crawford - Sauv Blanc and Pinot Noir
Sterling - stick with their whites
Fess Parker - stick with their whites
Francia Coppola - Claret

So, wine friends, no matter what your budget or need, you can always find good wine. Try some new ones this week and let me know what you think!

Cheers!

Here is my favorite FREE wine app to keep track of all your fav wines, tasting notes and ratings

I know we all love and cherish those cute wine label memory books where you can tape the label on a page and write your review. Right? Oh, yeah.....I forgot. We all bought it and never took the time to actually use it. Guilty! I actually think I have, like, three of them. 

Want to remember that one wine you loved with tasting notes and ratings and it doesn't involve even picking up a pen?

Enter the free app, Vivino. I know it is available on Droids but you IPhone folks will need to check on this for me. With Vivino, you take a picture of the label, they match the wine from their catalogue (if they accidentally get it wrong, you can change the varietal or year), and then you can add tasting notes and ratings.

You can finally get rid of those millions of bottles sitting in your house that you are afraid to throw away lest you forget what that awesome wine you drank was. Admit it. You all do it.

My house is now bottles sitting around and hazardous to now crawling child free.

Cheers!

Fake Your Way to Sommelier Status

Don't waste an open bottle of wine - how to preserve is so it stays fresh for the next day or even a week!

If you are like most casual wine drinkers, you open a bottle of wine and when you don't finish it, put the cork back on and leave it on the counter for later, only to arrive to a sour or "old" tasting wine. It feels like money was wasted and frustration over losing a great tasting wine so quickly! 

Why does this happen?

It is because your wine has oxidized. Oxidize = to combine with oxygen. Once your bottle has been opened, it can take a few days or less for your wine to become oxidized.

This can be bad news for your wine if not stored properly for your next glass.

What do you do now? There is an easy and affordable tool that can delay the oxidation process once a bottle has been opened.

It is called, simply, a Wine Bottle Vacuum Pump.

This handy dandy pump can be used on any bottle (other than champagne or sparkling wine) to keep it fresh and properly stored for up to a week. It is very easy to use.  Just stick the reusable rubber stopper in the bottle, use the vacuum to pump out the air until it won't pump anymore and store the wine in the fridge. It is much more effective to store the opened wine in the refrigerator than leave it out on the counter. However, I personally will leave a red on the counter for a day if I know I am drinking it the next night. Some have been able to preserve an opened bottle of wine for as long as a week using this tool. You can purchase the pump for under $10 with usually 3 stoppers included at any Bed, Bath and Beyond, Target, Amazon or World Market.

If you want to preserve a sparkling wine, you will need a bottle stopper. Unlike still wines, you actually want to keep the air in the bottle, not out. Again, this can be purchased for under $10 and you just pop it on the bottle and place in the fridge.

No matter what, your wine will always taste a bit different each time you open it but, hopefully, with these tools, it will continue to stay fresh for you to get your full money's worth out of each tasting.

Cheers!

It's National Drink Wine Day. How are you going to celebrate?

A great day like today which, in my opinion, is only dwarfed by Christmas or a birthday, is National Drink Wine Day. What better day than to thank wine for all of its amiable qualities.

On the National Drink Wine Day website, they "spread the love and health benefits of wine.  Wine has played an important role in history, religion and relationships.  We embrace the positive benefits of wine such as new friends, reduced risk of heart disease and the enhancement of food and life."

I plan to sit back tonight with a lovely County Line 2010 Pinot Noir, which can be found at our local Red or White wine shop. One of my recent fav's.

How will you celebrate today?

Cheers! 

Do you cringe at the thought of having to clean your wine glasses?

So, if you read this blog, you love to drink wine too.

I bet you also cringe at the thought of having to clean the glasses after. The delicate glass, stem, always leaves water stain, can I or can I not put it in the dishwasher? glasses. And, if you are anal retentive like yours truly, you dread the water stain and soap scum smell that can come in your next wine drinking experience if you don't wash them right.

So, for those of you that want a short and sweet answer. Can I have good wine glasses and just put them in the dishwasher and let that work it's magic? The answer is YES. Riedel wine glasses, which are great for all sorts of varietals and can be found at your local Target, can be simply placed in the dishwasher.

Now, for those of you that prefer to safe-keep your wine glasses and hand wash them, here is your saving grace - the wine drying rack.

This little purchase (I would check Amazon) literally changed my life. No longer was I left to stand my wine glasses up to dry and let water/soap just sit to dry off. No, no, life is full of clean and streak free wine glass drinking. Once you get your hand washing routine down (mine is use the sponge to clean the outside, rim and inside followed by 3-4 rinses of water inside and outside the glass), you can then hang it on this fancy-smanchy rack to dry and allow all extra water and left-over soap to nicely fall out.

I love the above example because what does it also show?? That's right! A decanter! You can use the larger space between the wine stem rows to hang your decanter to dry.


You can now happily drink your wine and not be afraid of the cleaning aftermath.

Cheers!

Wine Review: Justin Vineyards 2008 Syrah (and what wine(s) you can find in your own grocery store like it!)

 Baby girl gives Justin a "touchdown" review!

The hubbie and I have what we like to call our "only drink from this wine every 6 months" wine closet. It is actually a bedroom closet but we like to think its a fancy wine cellar. Hubbie was never allowed to touch or even look at it while I was pregnant.

Some days, I get an itch to take a peek and celebrate with some of our beloved wines every once in awhile. One of those nights happened this week. 

Justin Vineyards is located in Paso Robles, CA which happens to be my favorite wine region in the world. Paso produces tasty, full reds and some of the best Viognier's I have ever tasted. Paso typically grows its fruit in the French Rhone style. We drank the Justin Vineyards 2008 Syrah. Letting it sit in the bottle for almost 6 years is a pretty good life for this wine.

When we opened it, we put it in a decanter to let it breath for awhile. This is what a decanter looks like. You can get a simple one at your local Target for a good price.

When you decant your wine, you want to do it "violently" so as to allow as much oxygen to come into contact with it as you pour it into the vessel. The wine can then open up and breath for a bit before you taste it.

Review
Justin Vineyards 2008 Syrah
Bouquet: nice tones of cranberry, bing cherries, blackberry, earthiness (dirt), vanillaTaste: blackberry, pepper, blackcurrant
Full finish with the same dark fruity taste
Wine Momma Scale Number: It was almost a 2, but I think we may have opened it a bit too early, so its a 3. A great wine for any occasion. (See my wine review scale on the right side of the blog)

If you live in Coastal Alabama, you can find the Justin Isosceles (their most famous varietal) at Red or White in Fairhope or Mobile. You can also find a few varietals at Southern Napa in Daphne.

Want to try a Justin-like wine for under $10? Right now, I do not believe that is possible. With whites, yes. Reds? So much harder to bring out the flavors.

That said, can you find a decent red under $12?? YES!

Try the Bogle Petite Sirah, currently at $11.99 at Publix or your local grocery store. Hubbies, a great wine for dinner tonight with your ladies perhaps??

Cheers and Happy Valentine's Day!

How do you really drink a glass a wine?

Well, I suppose it would first help to buy a bottle. Then open it. If you have never opened a bottle of wine before, you are in for a treat. If you choose to use the below rotary winged puller corkscrew, you are asking for a punishment worse than 100 push ups. Don't use it. It sucks. And breaks your cork, which is a no-no.

Now, just live the simple life and buy or borrow a simple corkscrew. See below. $10.

It has a neat little knife that pops off the side to cut the top off and then screw the screw in. Then proceed to use the lever on the side as leverage on the side of the wine bottle to pull it out. 

I have a fantasy that one day I can do this like a super cool waiter that does it standing up without putting it on a table. Practice makes perfect.

Now that you have the bottle successfully open and with hopefully no cuts or sprayed glass anywhere, you need a glass. I will not go into specific glass types today, but will do so soon. This is so much more important than you can imagine - each varietal can taste differently in different glasses. 

If you choose to drink white wine, for the love of everything Holy, please do not add ice cubes. That is the cardinal sin of wine drinking. Remove that temptation from your life now. I will pray for your healing. 

One thing many of you may not know is that you should always hold the glass at its stem. That way, your hand will not warm up the wine. This is especially important with whites.This is also why I am not a huge fan of stemless glassware. Just stick with the stems, is what I say. 

Good, wine in glass and now we are ready to survey the goods. 

Yes, yes, we have all thought the same things. What in the heck do I do now? Four things:

1. You want to swirl the wine a bit. Since the wine has been left alone in a vacuum of a bottle for how ever many months or years, it needs to "aerate." Aeration - the process by which air is circulated through. You can actually also do this as you pour out the wine and we will talk about that in a future post.

2. You want to smell the wine. What smells come to you? This is not rocket science but can be hard at first. Flowers? Grapefruit? Nuts? Coffee? Chocolate? Have fun with a friend trying out the different smells you can get from your wine.

3. You want to check its color. This is pretty fun and helps if you place it between you and a light source. It may look pink, dark yellow, dark red, purple, etc. These all indicate the different "weight" of the wine, the presence of tannins (tannin - a bitter, acidic compound that is often found in "heavy" red wines) and different varietal types.

4. Finally, after all of this hard work, you want to drink it. Not shoot it, not down it all in one drink. Just sip it and take small bits at a time. You want to "nurse" a glass of wine. This is because a variety of flavors can come to you based on where the wine hits your tongue and how it meets the oxygen in the air.

One tip when drinking - I like to bring the wine into my mouth, swirl it and slurp it a bit. It takes some practice and you might choke a time or two....I do not know this at all from personal experience, of course. :-) The slurping method helps to bring more oxygen into the wine and releases its flavors even more.

Once you have swallowed, take note of what is called "the finish." The flavors that arrive to the back of your tongue after the wine is gone. It's pretty amazing and can be a completely different taste than when you first drank the wine.

Wine is so cool. Did I mention that yet today?

Cheers!

My four favorite things about being a wine-o

Once upon a time, I was a young professional. I met wine and it was love at first sip.

My No. 1 favorite thing - we all have different palates. Yes, you will learn what tastes and smells do normally associate a "good" wine, but no one can go wrong with their own palate and what they do/don't like. Through drinking with family, wine-making friends in CA and through continued education and discernment, I began to learn how MY palate distinguished flavors, bouquets and finishes.

With me, I was sure that my favorite Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio was the best wine ever. Sorry, Terlato Wines, but I was wrong, according to my maturing palate. 

Then, I met a boy. We fell in love and into wine drinking. On a daily basis. Essentially becoming what America likes to call, a "wine-o." It did not help when we moved to Southern CA, essentially magnifying our wine-o-ness.

Via the Urban Dictionary, a Wine-O is defined as: An indivudual who enjoys drinking wine more than most, this would be the person you ask... "what kind of wine goes best with lamb shanks and sweet peas?"

My No. 2 favorite thing - having a husband who loves to drink wine as much as I do. Yes, you can cultivate your love for something without support but when you have someone there in the race with you, it is more fun, your learn more quickly and you have someone to bounce your thoughts and ideas off of.

Boy and girl got married and lived life together, often through travel.

My No. 3 favorite thing - Basing your vacation spots on wine tasting. Pretty much the greatest plan ever. It can take you anywhere in the world. Some of the areas I will discuss later are Napa, Paso Robles, Maine, Temecula, Oregon, Umbria, Tuscany, Germany, France, Washington and even Florida and Indiana.

Boy and girl moved again and had a baby. She was precious.

My No. 4 favorite thing - teaching others about wine. That includes adults, my children, nieces/nephews. One of my proudest moments was when my 2 year old nephew told the sommelier ("a trained and knowledgeable wine professional") in Disney World how to drink wine. He said, "Put it up to the light, smell it, swirl it, drink it!" in the most adorable baby boy voice ever. The sommelier then offered him a large sum of money for his services but we had to decline.

My newest and youngest student is my baby girl. Yes, she may only be 9 months old, but when she sees her wine momma with a bottle and glass, her giddiness is palpable and her palate is already learning how to discern.

If you have made it this far, thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, please come back. I will continue to write about wine regions, local wine tastings in South Alabama, review wines (those that are found in grocery stores too - often very good and cheap!), wine terms, aeration, decanting, different wine glasses and how it affects the taste, wine and food pairings, cooking with wine, pregnancy/nursing and wine, varietal types, and much more.

Cheers!