This is a quiet night with Tom gone so I am having dinner with the Wall Street Journal. I finished what was left of the wine from last night and it was even more delicious tonight. I made a chicken stir fry with chicken, asparagus, tomatoes and angel hair pasta. So, Trigger and I will make the best of our quiet night together. She misses Tom, too.

It is Sunday night and Tom is packing for a business trip so I picked out a nice wine for our before-he-leaves night. This is so interesting. When I first poured the wine, I found it to be incredibly subtle with a velvety texture and soft tannins. But, now, after dinner has been eaten and the dishes washed, the wine has opened up and changed quite dramatically. No longer subtle, it is fruity, tannic and intense. Delicious.

For dinner I made baked pasta with steamed broccoli. I also needed to use up some milk so I made a baked brown rice pudding with lots of custardy filling with cinnamon and nutmeg.

I had to work late tonight so Tom made me dinner tonight. The salmon was delicious! I am so appreciative of Tom cooking for me. He never cooked, ever, (except to open a bag of pretzels) but I asked for his help. And, I come home to this wonderful dinner. How lucky am I?

This Spanish Tempranillo is really nice and delicious. Extremely fruity with smooth tannins. I am enjoying it immensely.

We are having this California blend of Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah, Petite Sirah, and Zinfandel tonight after a nice Saturday in which I went for a nice run, did laundry and watched football. This is a delicious quaff with tangy fruit and spice, which we had with our dinner of spicy chili and a crusty whole wheat bread. The wine is full bodied and smooth. We love it.

This Penfolds Shiraz Cab 2009 is another of our Australian go-to, mid-week stand-bys.

We had this nice Rosemount Cab 2009 with meatloaf, acorn squash, and other assorted vegetables. Rosemount has become one of go-to wines.
We have been on a publishing hiatus but are back now. This post is coming by app from our new iPhones…

Amalaya 2009

It’s a Malbec blend from the Calchaqui Valley in northwestern Argentina.

It’s a big, bright-tasting red, big but the fruit taste is not dark fruit but more like cherry.

Very different and appealing. This is another wine that we could make a regular.

(The label says that “Amalaya” means “hope for a miracle” in the language of the indigenous people of the Calchaqui Valley. Cool.)

We had our first-of-the-summer outside dinner on our patio. Everything tasted even better eating it outside. It was a big dinner but I was loading up for a long training run scheduled for the next day.

This is one of our “go to” wines that is dependably delicious and decadent every time we open a bottle. Subtle flavors of ripe cherries and vanilla with a smokey finish.