It turns out that three of our friends/family thought of the same great idea for a wedding gift for us. We now have subscriptions to three different wine of the month clubs. That means that we get 6 bottles of wine a month. So rather than get swamped with wine, we figured we're going to have to start drinking it. Not the worst thing in the world!
On a related note, I have a great-uncle and great-aunt who have been married some ridiculous number of years (50+), and one tradition they have is to have a cocktail hour together every day. In fact, last time I visited them, I think it was suggested that the cocktail hour should be part of a healthy marriage. They always seem to go for Martinis, but since neither Jaime or I like Martinis and we have a plethora of wine, why not use that for our cocktail hour?
This is supposed to be a wine-making and garden themed blog, but it will be running out of posting subject matter over the winter (no garden and the wine will just be sitting there conditioning in the bottles), why not review the wines we're tasting? A word of caution, though. Neither of us are really wine connoisseurs (yay spell-check!). We may or may not have the palettes of an aficionado, but we certainly don't have the vocabulary of a sommelier. So this will be more like wine reviews for the common folk. Keep a look out for future wine review posts! The name of the wine and the final rating will be included in the titles.
The first wine for review is a 2005 Ledgewood Creek Merlot. The bottle says Suisun Valley. A quick wiki search showed this to be in California near Napa Valley.
Jaime notes a hint of cherry flavor first. I noticed a bit of earthiness and smoke along with the fruitiness. Its moderately dry. None of the flavors are terribly strong or overwhelming. Nothing harsh or upleasant. I'm not really sure how to describe this wine because there is no one distinctive characteristic to it. It would be great for somebody looking for a relatively mild merlot that tastes like a merlot. A red for people who don't like really strong dry reds, but it still tastes like its supposed to. I really really like this wine, but I probably fall into the aforementioned group. Every once in a while I like a really strong red, but not that often. This would probably be perfect for holiday gatherings where you're looking for a red that everybody would like and wouldn't overwhelm a dish like pasta with red sauce.
Jaime rates this wine a 8/10. Mmmmm!
Peter rates this wine a 9/10. I would definitely buy this wine if I saw it in a store.
Average score: 8.5
No idea how much this would cost in a store, but I hope its not too much, cause I'd really like some more of it. What a good start to the wine(s) of the month!
FYI: Jaime's rating scale is probably a bit more generous than mine. I really try to aim for an average of 5. I think she would probably average around a 6.2. I know, you're saying that doesn't make any sense since I rated it higher than her. I get the impression she thinks this is an enjoyable, above average wine. The rating of 9/10 that I gave it means this is probably a +2.5 standard deviation wine for me (1 in 100 or better). Really one of the best reds I can remember. Mmmmm, indeed.
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