Montes 2008 Malbec, Chile

What better thing to hear your significant other say on a random Tuesday night than "my boss told me to go home and have a glass of wine"? So we opened up one of the $10 malbecs we picked up this weekend. This one was simultaneously drier and fruitier than the previous malbec (Pascual Toso). The combo of dry and fruity was strange at first, when I had a glass without food. It's probably just habit, but when I taste a very fruity wine, the last thing I expect is for it to have a very dry, not the least bit sweet, finish. However, when we combined it with food — pasta with a rich Parmesan-y tomato cream sauce — it was significantly more delicious. The fruity flavor went very nicely with the tomatoes, and the rich sauce balanced the dryness. I wouldn't go for this one without some food to balance it out, but if you're looking for something to eat with dinner, go for it!

p.s. The girl scout cookies in the background of the pic are not a recommendation for a pairing. I recommend a glass of 2010 milk for the samoas and thin mints.

Pascual Toso 2008 Malbec, Argentina

I've been really enjoying malbecs lately, which isn't a wine I've had a lot of experience with. So when we went to our friendly neighborhood discount wine store, we asked them to point us in the direction of some good, cheap, malbec. This one, for less than $10, did not disappoint. It was on the dry side (which I consider a good thing), and had just enough going on that you could drink it on its own, or with food.



We paired it with 2 homemade pizzas, one with bbq chicken, and the other with goat cheese, slow roasted tomatoes, and eggplant. We finished the night with plenty of leftover pizza, but not a drop of leftover wine.

Red Truck, California

This is one of the few wines that I can remember from a couple of weeks back, mostly because of the simple name and fairly simple flavor (not necessarily a bad thing). We opened this up after polishing off a pricier and drier bottle with dinner, so I'll put in the caveat that my taste buds may have been a bit dulled by this point. This wine was medium-sweet and very jammy. In my opinion, it would be best to drink either after dinner, or slightly chilled on a hot summer afternoon, maybe with some simple bread, cheese, and fruit. This was a shot in the dark for us (one of those random $8 liquor store grabs), and we got lucky by opening it at the right time. I don't think we'd have been too pleased to drink this with our steak, but as a slightly dessert-y after dinner drink, it hit the spot.

Welcome!

So here's the deal: I really like drinking wine. I'm far from any sort of expert, but I know what I like. The problem is, I'm also really forgetful, and a few bottles of wine doesn't help that any. After the name and label of one too many delicious bottles was reduced to nothing but a vague memory ("I'm almost certain it starts with an S, and the label is definitely blue"), I decided I'd better start writing things down. If I'm the only person in the world who ever looks at this blog, it'll still serve its purpose of saving me another desperate wander through the wine store, hopelessly staring at labels and hoping for a spark of recognition. If my musings help other people find wines they want to try, all the better. Enjoy, and happy drinking!