Wine Club Rule #1 You gotta pour small glasses. Or else you won't last very long.
Post-Election / Pre-Thanksgiving Wine Club Sweet. The plan for November's wine club was to try out some wines that might go with Thanksgiving dinner - wines that the average person my not think to buy. It seems there is a lot of opinions on what would go with turkey and all the trimmings (I'm bringing sparkling wine myself), but I ended up just choosing three that I thought would be fun to investigate and drink while munching on cranberries, turkey, and sweet potatoes.
OK, but first, a big thanks to Claire & Jeff for hosting this wine club - it was awesome.
The bottom line: Wines for thanksgiving Right. So, I picked three wines to play with: Shiraz from Australia, Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, and Zinfandel from California (as in 'Red'). Granted, those are pretty different wines, but I thought it would be fun to try it this way. The wines were grouped together and everyone would drink them in sections.
The 'voting' was very extreme. As you can see below, the wine that got the most votes also got some of the most negative reviews. It was almost like we were a divided wine club. Any of the three types of wine would be fine with your turkey. Personally I found the zinfandel way too 'hot', big, and all up in my face for my enjoyment. Though, it could easily work with all the heavy turkey day trimmings. I am a big sauvignon blanc fan myself, but two odd things happened with the those. First, none them scored very high. Second, all the bottles were empty by the end - unlike the other wines. (so we liked it, but didn't?)
Personally, for our early turkey day with the family next weekend, I am brining sparkling California wine. For the real, actual thanksgiving day, maybe I'll bring one of those uber-fresh beaujolais nouveaus.
Score We did the ratings, but it's kind of goofy since it's not really apples to oranges (or red grapes to white grapes). Nonetheless, here are the three wines voted the overall favorites from this past Sunday's wine club.
:: 1st Place :: Megawatt Zinfandel - California 2002
Sweet, thick, spicy Over promises, under delivers A little rude, as if it left without saying goodnight Smells like Bubbalicious Floozy Berry-riffic Very pleasant I was shocked by it's megawatt goodness
I got poured too much of this one Would be good with pizza Awesome Quite a bit of spice Spicy, very perfumy bouquet - it tingles in your mouth Delicious. Rich, full, thick - love it. Good with turkey Sharp and acidy Spunky Complex, peppery, fine Whoo Foot what?
:: 3rd Place :: Rancho Zabaco Zinfendel - Sonoma 2001 Sweet goddamn christ on a crutch. Yummy. You can tell the winemakers belong to a union. Sweet and sharp Kissy. Plum. Raisin. Dark. It has some kind of specific, hidden dry fruit in the background... currants?
