For the past months, I haven't been blogging about our everyday wines. This is not because the wines were not good. No, no, no. In fact, the bottles we opened and paired with our food were very good.
Since the wines were all from Merriam Vineyards, I've decided to showcase them all in one blog instead. Salut!
We opened this 2013 Estate Pinot Noir Russian River Valley by Merriam Vineyards and paired it with our one of our meals and Friday happy hour at home.
This award winning wine is fresh tasting with a hint of spice and herbs. A bottle of wine usually lasts up to three to four dinners but this didn't last long. We really liked this wine.
A couple of months ago, Mijo and I went to Landmark Vineyards to wine taste. This week, we opened one of the bottles of Pinot Noir that we bought during our wine tasting there.
This wine is delicious and it paired well with our meals.
This week, we opened a bottle of Rodney Strong 2010 Reserve Pinot Noir. We got this bottle from our visit to their tasting cellars in Sonoma two years ago.
Mijo and I love this wine. The weather was warmer than usual for a San Francisco summer and this wine proved to be a tasty treat for us.
Last week Mijo and I opened a bottle of Deep End Blend 2012 Pinot Noir by Navarro Vineyards.
We've preview tasted this wine a year and half ago so we knew we will like this wine. We paired them with tasty appetizers and light Thai dishes. The wine was delicious!
Two years ago, our friends Bren and Bob, Mijo and I went to Castello Di Amorosa to wine taste. This week, we opened our last bottle of Sangiovese that we bought during our wine tasting there.
This wine is tasty and it went well with our home made meals and snacks. Maybe it is time to go back to Castello di Amorosa to replenish our stock.
A year ago, Mijo and I made it to the tasting cellars of Merryvale Vineyards and brought home two bottles of Pinot Noir and a bottle of Carbernet Sauvignon. We opened a Pinot Noir two months afterward.
This week, we are sampling the second bottle of Pinot Noir from that visit. We knew we were going to love this bottle and we paired it with home cooked meals on Friday and Sunday.
Mijo bought two bottles of Josh Cellars 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon with the plan of serving it to his relatives when we invited them over for a small barbeque. Let's just say the two bottles were left unopened.
So for two weeks, we've been pairing this wine with our home dinners. This wine is actually good and it even went well with our modest dinners.
A week before we left for our vacation in the Philippines and Indonesia, we opened a bottle we got from our last wine tasting trip to Kendall-Jackson.
We paired the bottle of cab with cheeses from Cow Girl Creamery and pizza and pasta from Goat Hill Pizza. The pairings went really well.
We spent Christmas Eve at home and Mijo and I shared a Filipino dinner. I've always paired Filipino dinners with white wines, but because of the occasion, we decided to open a very special 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Tomahawk Vineyard by Chimney Rock.
The pairing was superb! This wine is definitely a special wine and a winner to us.
I'm happy to have finally opened one of the bottles from our latest trip to the beautiful Napa Valley. We opened a bottle of Casa Piena Our Gang 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon by Policy Vineyards.
This wine was one of the wines we sampled at Ma(i)sonry with our friends Bob and Bren. It was a delicious blend of earthy and fruits. My favorite flavors.
For this week, Mijo and I sampled a store bought wine. We sampled a bottle of 2009 Monterey County Pinot Noir by Castle Rock last year and we liked it but I didn't take detailed notes.
So when we saw the same wine but with a different vintage at the grocery store, I decided to pick up a bottle and made sure I'll pay attention to the flavors and pairings this time.
Before Mijo left for the Philippines and Thailand for a relaxing vacation, we opened a bottle of Pinot Noir from Merryvale. What's a guy to do with an open bottle of wine? I rarely drink alone but I had to finish this wine by pairing with my dinners at home.
As expected, this bottle was delicious and pairs well with different kinds of dishes and finger foods. Merryvale is one of my favorite reds.
Mijo and I are back to our normal routine after our Thailand and Philippine vacation and after the Christmas Holiday. We also thought of starting the New Year with a good wine so we decided to open one of the wines we store in our mini cellar downstairs.
We opened a wine that we bought during one of our regular trips to Napa - Clos Du Val 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. Que rico!
For this weekend, we opened our last bottle of this Veuve Clicquot champagne. It was one of the three bottles we set aside for the New Year countdown. Four friends came over to our house on New Year's Eve and we only finished a little over a bottle. I quickly resealed the unfinished second bottle for later.
Mijo quickly put together a delicious steamed mussels as our late lunch and we decided to use the remaining champagne and opened the third bottle for pairing.
The bottles of wines we paired with our home meals in the past weeks were forgettable except for this one - 2003 Beringer Merlot. Claudia, Mijo's sister, brought this bottle a few years ago.
We opened this bottle on the evening of World Series Game 1.
I sort of knew that this bottle was going to be a good one. Plus, I think we also got lucky with the food that we paired with this bottle that evening. On top of good wine, good take-out food and the best companion in the entire world Mijo, the SF Giants won that evening!
Last week, we opened a bottle of 2008 Palazzo Della Torre by Allegrini. Mijo bought this one from the supermarket so I was a little skeptical at first. Skeptical because we didn't taste this one before making the purchase.
The gods of wine must be with Mijo when he bought this bottle because this wine is fabulous. This wine is so full and so rich it felt and tasted very smooth.
I knew we are going to like this wine. This is one of the bottles we brought from our last wine tasting trip to Beringer in Sonoma, of course, we tasted them first before making the purchase.
Though I am a Pinot Noir kind of guy, this wine is easy to like because of its fruity, spicy and rustic flavors. As always, we finished the bottle stretched out to several dinners.
Last week, we opened one of the bottles of wine that we brought with us from our trip to Florence. I guess, we were too excited to open a bottle because it has only been two weeks since we came back from Italy. We got this bottle from a wine bar on Via Borgo San Lorenzo called Borgovino. It was super delicious so we thought of bringing a bottle with us to the States.
This week, we are tasting a red wine blend called 6Y by Topel Winery. I was at our friendly neighborhood Canyon Market and this beautifully labelled bottle of wine caught my attention. The label has this painting of a sexy sophisticated woman with a red lipstick. Later, I learned that 6Y is read as, you guessed it right, sexy (or more like sixy?). A small voice was telling me, come on, be open minded and try this one just because it is a blend. I've had red wine blends of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah before and I truly loved them so why not give this blend of four red wines a try, I thought to myself. I paired this wine with spaghetti with meat balls from Monterey Pizza.