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Another year of wine is coming to a close, and it’s been another good year.
It’s been a year of trying new wines and creating great memories with friends over wine – sometimes even over spilled wine.
This year we told you about a giant wine stain that ended up on our cream-colored tablecloth during a wine mishap. There was a red wine spill, and we made the mistake of not washing the tablecloth that night. When Krista tried to get the stain out the next day, it was too late. None of her tricks worked. None of the suggestions from the Internet worked. Even our readers’ suggestions didn’t work.
So what did we do? Instead of tossing the tablecloth in the trash, Krista bought some wine-colored dye and dyed it. Now, we have a nice wine-colored tablecloth. And a few weeks ago when we spilled a little wine on it at another wine tasting, it wasn’t a problem. We have no idea if the spill came out or not – and we don’t care, because it blended right in. Sounds like the tablecloth we’ll be using for all our wine tastings from now on.
We also told you about the wine club we formed with our neighbors. Our first meeting was in February to celebrate Open That Bottle Night – the wine holiday created by the Wall Street Journal wine columnists to encourage people to open wines they have been saving.
Since then we have met four more times – each time at a different neighbor’s house. Each evening has been great. We tried wines with Romanian cabbage rolls – most of us brought whites. We had a Tuscan-themed meal with lots of Italian red wines. Late in the summer we grilled out and had a nice variety of wines under a beautiful starlit night. And we ended with a delicious homemade lasagna with “ugly duckling” wines – those with plain bottles. It was that night that we uncorked the first bottle of Zinfandel that Dan made (we’ll tell you more about that in another column).
We’ve had several old wines, new wines and lots of wines we had never heard of before. But most of all we’ve had a great excuse to get together with our wonderful neighbors. And that, dear reader, is what wine is all about.
Also this year, we were fortunate to try a wine that has been recommended to us more than once but is impossible to buy locally. Dr. Konstantin Frank’s 2002 Rkatsiteli – a wine from New York’s Finger Lakes region – was given to us as a gift. We decided to uncork it one evening with Krista’s award-winning White Rattlesnake Chili (despite its name, it’s actually pretty mild). The wine lived up to the hype we had heard about it.
In fact, we can say it was one of the best white wines we’ve ever had – certainly the best American white wine we’ve had.
It was much like a Gewürztraminer, with lots of stone fruit and mineral flavors, but it was also smooth and juicy and had flowers and perfume. It was perfectly balanced, with mouthwatering acids that let it stand up to the chili, and a long, long finish. Yummy!
If you ever get to the Finger Lakes region, find Dr. Frank and buy all of this that you can.
Finally, if there’s one thing we repeat over and over it’s to try new wines. Pick up a bottle you’ve never seen before. Get out of your rut. Try something unusual.
We did that many times this year. But the biggest risk we took – with our taste buds, if not financially – was when we bought a pumpkin wine. We bought Three Lakes Winery’s Wine of the Pumpkin for $2.99 on clearance at a grocery store near Krista’s parents’ house. The label said it was wine made from pie pumpkins: We knew it was strange, but we couldn’t resist, especially at that price.
We opened it a couple of weeks ago and realized why it was on clearance. It smelled like pumpkin guts. It also tasted like pumpkin guts. We’ve had wines that tasted like apple pie, and we were hoping this one would taste like pumpkin pie. No such luck.
Checking the label, it said to drink fresh, that it was not meant to age, and there was no telling how old it was. Hmmmm.
Still, we’re glad we tried it. And if we see something odd like that again, we’ll probably try it just for fun. You should, too.
We hope you had a great year with wine. Enjoy the holiday season, and be safe. Next week, we’ll give you our reviews of what wines go well with Christmas ham.
Cheers!
