El Portal Zinfandel (2007)

el-portal-zinfandel-2007Yay! It’s Friday night and we are celebrating the close of a big work week. Tom chose this El Portal Zinfandel 2007 from California for tonight. This dark beauty has luscious ripe raspberries on the nose and dark blackberry pepper and plums on the palate.  The tannins are subdued. This is an easy-to-drink wine and that will be perfect for our dinner tonight.

I am concocting my own rendition of stir fry for dinner tonight. I took one small steak and cut it into small chunks, drizzled with olive oil, and freshly ground salt and pepper. I set that aside and chopped about 5 miniature peppers (yellow, red, and orange), 2 leeks, 12 small cherry tomatoes, and 3 cloves of garlic. I will sautee the steak, add the vegetables, and then add about 10 cups of fresh baby spinach leaves. After the spinach wilts, I will add the entire skillet of steak and vegetables to a big bowl of penne pasta. I’ll add some freshly-ground salt and pepper and voila! Yummy! Cheers and have a great weekend!

Lindemans South Africa Shiraz (2006)

lindemans-south-africa-shiraz-2006It is Wednesday night — a mid-week, very cold night in Michigan — and we are enjoying a glass of wine while reading the paper and listening to music. It is -2 degrees right now. I have leftover soup (that I made over the weekend) on the stove for dinner tonight.

This Lindemans South Africa Shiraz 2006 is a wine that Tom bought on sale at our local grocery store. The nose is dull but the flavors are rich with chocolate, licorice and fruit. I have to hand it to Tom, this was a good value. I think most red-wine drinkers would enjoy this rich, fruity quaff.

Stay warm everyone. February will be over before we know it and then there will only be 6 more weeks of winter!

Ramirez de Velazco Malbec

ramirez-de-velazco-malbec-2008We are having a glass of this Ramirez de Velazco Malbec 2008 on a Monday night. I have meatloaf in the oven for our dinner tonight. I think that this wine has all the qualities of a good wine; I just don’t happen to love it  like I do most of the red wines we drink. The problem for me is that both the nose and the finish have a sweet-ish, flavored coffee-like taste and aroma. I think some wine drinkers would really like this, but I do not.

It’s very unusual for me not to love a Malbec. But, I wouldn’t go out of my way for another bottle of this (although I believe we have one more bottle in our stock).

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