Tasting Notes

Tasting notes for individual wines.

Meerlust manor house

Wine Tasting in Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, South Africa

Being the wine lovers that we are, we wouldn’t consider visiting South Africa without spending a few days wine tasting. We spent two days wine tasting in Franschhoek, Stellenbosch, Tulbagh and Swartland. On the third day we ventured out to a stunning farm in Somerset West. We have never toured such a beautiful wine region, and the wines were not overshadowed one bit by the beauty of the scenery. Join our tour of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch in this post.

Lodi Tempranillo for #TempranilloDay — Five Delicious Choices

Today is International Tempranillo Day. An entire day dedicated to the enjoyment of Tempranillo wine. If you’ve never enjoyed the variety, it’s a good time to do so. If you’re already a fan of the variety, it’s the perfect time to enjoy your favorite Tempranillo or maybe find a new favorite. Here are five delicious choices from Lodi for your #TempranilloDay celebration.

November #WineStudio – It’s All About Willamette Valley Chardonnay

We will be spending Tuesday evenings in November getting the lowdown on Willamette Valley Chardonnay with #WineStudio, an online Twitter-based wine education program. The discussions, organized by Protocol Wine Studio, begin at 6 pm Pacific time. You can join the conversation by following the hashtag #WineStudio. We will post a summary each week to keep you up to date.

Two Red Wines, One Pasta Dinner

The birch tree in our backyard has turned bright yellow, and its leaves are dropping rapidly, creating a brilliant carpet. The weather is cooling and my taste is turning once again to red wine. I do love fall.

Just ahead of the change of seasons, we recently received two red wines as tasting samples from our twitter friend Mark Aselstine (@wineclubguy). Yes, as you might guess from Mark’s twitter handle he has established a wine club, along with brother-in-law Matt Krause. It’s cleverly called Uncorked Ventures. But it’s more than just a wine club.

Madeira: My Love Affair Continues

I fell in love with Madeira over 15 years ago. First the wine, then the island. My wine exploration began with a bottle of Rainwater Madeira recommended to me by a local wineshop owner. Rainwater is a lighter style of Madeira and he suggested it would be a good wine to introduce me to the flavors of Madeira. He was right. I fell in love with the island of Madeira when we traveled there in 2002. We recently attended a tasting of Madeira wine which brought back many memories of our trip to the island.

Butternut Squash Risotto: White Wine or Rosé for #winePW 5?

The theme for the October Wine Pairing Weekend (#winePW) is Fall Fruits and Wine Pairings. Fall fruits…hmm that title made me think of dessert initially. But, then I got to thinking about what a fall fruit is. I pretty quickly determined that squash is a fruit, and not a vegetable as I had assumed, so that opened-up the possibility of cooking a savory dish instead of a dessert. Since butternut squash is my favorite fall squash, I set about finding a recipe using butternut squash.