Wannabe Wino

We've had some company with us this week, so I decided to make some homemade pizza as a slightly fancier mid-week dinner. And with it, we started out with a bottle of 2004 Alderbrook Carignane.

The wine came in a club shipment and didn't have a price, but the 2003 was $19, so I would guess it was around the same price. It was 14.1% alcohol by volume and had a real cork closure.

On the nose there were plums, dark berries, spice, leather and oddly enough, the scent of a forest. The aromas just kept coming as the glass sat out. In the mouth the wine was incredibly smooth and is drinking really well, though the layers of flavors make me think it could age for quite a bit longer. In the mouth there were dark fruits, black cherries and blackberries.

Overall the wine had a great mouth feel and I wish we had more of it hanging around. I picture this with pasta sauce based dishes, the spice would be a good compliment to the sauce.

I was poking around the Alderbrook website this afternoon and discovered that Alderbrook is part of the Terlato Wine Group. I wonder if it's possible that the one bottle of Terlato that we drank back in February came in a club shipment? It was a mystery to me as to where it came from since I am 100% positive that we did not go to the Terlato Vineyard and it has been driving me nuts ever since we drank it trying to figure out how it arrived in our wine rack. However, it might make sense that it came from an Alderbrook shipment since they are all part of the same group. I guess mystery solved, finally. Here's to hoping that I will no longer have the lapses of my spreadsheet now that I am faithfully using Cellar Tracker.

I'm finally feeling well enough to sit up and focus long enough to write up a post. I think I've had the plague. It's been a super fun week, given the I've only been at my job for 5 months so I had all of 3 sick days to use to get over whatver this was...

Anyway, back to the wine. The other night (don't really remember when) we drank this bottle of 2005 Terlato Pinto Grigio. I'm assuming we picked this up last summer though to be honest I have no recollection of visiting the vineyard and it's the only bottle in our collection, so I'm stumped. There was only one other vineyard where we bought but one bottle and that was due to the fact that the least expensive bottle there was $39...a little out of our everyday price range!

So this bottle. Cost us $22, is 13.6% alcohol by volume and had a screwcap closure. On the nose this bottle was very aromaic, showing a melon and white flowers. In the mouth there was more melon and a bit of spice. The wine actually surprised me in the mouth, as it was heavier than I expected from the nose and actually had a touch of an oily feel to it. Overall, a well done Pinot Grigio. I served this with Chinese take-out, which consisted of Seshwan Beef, Spicy Shrimp and Sweet and Sour Chicken. It was a pretty good match for the meal, with the melon giving a good balance to the spicy food. I also wrote down that I'd like to drink this on the porch in the summer.