Category Archives: Red Wine

That time of the year, when we honor our Mom’s, whether they are with us or not. I am lucky enough to still have my Mom, and this year, for the first time since I moved to Halifax, she is with me for Mother’s Day. She is 88 years young and going quite strong. Here she is in January on her 88th birthday.

And here we are yesterday evening, as we open a very special bottle of wine.

My brother-in-law Craig bought this back in March when he was here. And I was saving it for something special. And what’s more special than getting to spend Mother’s Day weekend with your Mom, who lives in another province.

Caymus is one of my favorite Vineyards in California, and they know how to make Zinfandel. This is a 95-Point Wine, beautifully full-bodied and lush with spicy herbal notes. One of my friends asked me yesterday evening if it was worth the treat price tag and I said yes. Absolutely yes. The Wagner family make amazing wines, including the line of Mer Soleil and Conundrum Wines, however, the Caymus line is their top notch line. Started in 1972, this vineyard is still in the family. This wine retails here for $75, so it is a treat wine, but my Mom is worth it. And I didn’t buy it LOL

Thank you to all the Moms. Thank you to all the Moms of fur-babies as well. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend

Darlene

I love red wine that has been oaked. Many times you’ll hear people say ‘I don’t like oaky wine’. I am not a huge fan of what I call ‘manipulated oaky wine’. Unfortunately, some lesser priced wines can taste oaky, even though they have never seen the inside of an oak barrel. Some mass produced wines use oak chips or oak staves inside of tanks to give it an ‘oaky flavor’. This is why you’ll hear me say I’m not a fan of overly oaked wine, but I love wine that has been aged properly in oak. 50 of the world’s most expensive wines are oak aged in some way.

Old world winemakers have been using oak for hundreds of years and have it down to a science. There are 3 types of oak used for wine, and each imparts a different flavor and nuance. There is French oak, American oak and Hungarian oak (also called European oak). Most of the wines available to us here use mostly French oak or American oak. I have, however, had Hungarian oak.

This Mas Buscados Tempranillo, Syrah & Petite Verdot blend from Spain, which we used to be able to buy here, was aged in Hungarian Oak. The tannins were soft and the fruit of the wine highlighted. This was such a great wine at a great price, it’s too bad we can’t get here in Nova Scotia anymore.

The interesting part about oak is that the more an oak barrel is used, the more subtle the flavors it imparts. If you are into reading the back of the wine bottle, like I am, you’ll see sometimes they use ‘new and used’ oak. The newer a barrel, the more oak flavor it imparts.

MacMurray Wines used this technique a lot with their fantastic Pinot Noir wines. Run by Kate MacMurray, she is the daughter of Hollywood actors Fred MacMurray and June Havers.

American Oak imparts a lot of flavor, more so than French oak. Wine experts often describe the American Oak flavors as vanilla. You’ll often see the word ‘vanilla’ flavors mentioned on the back of a wine bottle, and that flavor comes from the oak. One thing is for sure, it adds ruggedness to clean, fruit-forward new world wines. An American oak barrel costs between $350 – $650 and a French oak barrel costs between $650 – $3600, depending on quality. Wow.

Let’s talk some new wines. This is so good, I’m going to call this my wine of the week.

From Central Chile, this beauty is called the perfect blend of wine and art on its label. Quatro means 4, which a perfect blend of 4 grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Shiraz, and Malbec. My friends Angie and Pat shared this wine with me, and they both loved it. So, there you have it, 3 opinions, all loving this wine. And it’s priced at $21, which is a great value for this wine.

Quick update for my readers and friends I have enjoyed a two week break from treatments, but that is coming to an end. On Monday, I have a CT scan, and on Wednesday another scope, which will determine how the first 5 weeks of Radiation and Chemo did to that tumor. Then the next round of treatments will be determined. Feeling great though.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Darlene

Ok… What happened to September? I feel like I blinked Labor Day Weekend and here we are October 1st. Thanksgiving is next weekend.

I swear the older I get, the faster time flies. My Mom arrived yesterday. Speaking of time, she is 87, she’ll turn 88 in January. Still looking great an still on the go.

My Mom lives on her own, in the Senior’s cottages in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. But she doesn’t drive anymore. So my sister Jackie, and her husband Craig, who also live in Corner Brook, are her primary care-givers. Today, they leave for Hawaii for 4 weeks. Lucky!! They deserve it though. They work so hard and they also do so much for my Mom, since my sister is the only sibling that lives in the same town as my Mom. So my Mom is here for 2 weeks and then I fly home with her and work from home from my sister’s house for 2 weeks. I’m staying at my sister’s house, because my Mom’s cottage is really small, and I’ll be taking care of this baby. I’m dogsitting Maggie.

So with my Mom here, I’ll be doing some cooking. She says she is really craving BBQ, and you know I’m her girl. I’m sure next week, I’ll have more recipes to share. I made my maple curry chicken pasta this past week for some colleagues of mine who loved it. I forgot to take a picture. But it turned out well. I have shared it before, in this previous wine blog.

I have one wine this week. And it’s my wine of the week, and an amazing wine.

My friend Anthony and I were talking this past week about how much we love Cabernet Franc. And I had to tell him about this one.

This is the perfect wine for all your favorite Fall comfort foods. A full-bodied wine with hints of pepper and spice, it has a long lasting finish and was a beautiful treat. Priced under $25, this is a perfect example of a great wine price under $25. Someone at work was asking me about $25 wines and $100 wines, and I said ‘You can get a great wine for $25’ and this is one of those examples.

Well, that’s it for me for this week. Till next week, Cheers

Darlene

I’m back from 8 days in Newfoundland. I left on Saturday the 23rd, and took the night crossing. This was my view as the ferry was ready to dock Sunday morning in Port aux Basques, on the province’s West Coast. It was a Come Home Year in Newfoundland and I was one of many thousand who went home for a time this Summer.

I left the day after I turned the big 60! Here’s to another great decade. My friend Cassandra took me out to lunch on my birthday. The restaurant was kind enough to serve me a special dessert, which I thoroughly enjoyed. She also introduced me to a new drink.

OMG, you have to try the Cold Stream Rum Cream. She gave me Starbucks Iced Coffee and a bottle of the rum cream and it is sooooo good!! I know it’s not wine, but I do enjoy other cocktails, and this one tops the list. Coldstream is a local company founded by a young man and his family and friends. It opened in 2015 and makes top quality products. Check out their story here.

Another highlight of the trip was my friend Angie flew down and joined us for 4 days.

She flew down on the Wednesday and then we drove back together on Sunday. We took in many sites including Gros Morne National Park with my Mom, who turns 88 on her next birthday.

We stayed at my sister and brother in law’s cabin in George’s Lake, which also had some pretty impressive views. Do you know what I found out? I’m really good at building fires. Built one every night I was there. However, a big thanks to my brother-in-law for cutting all the wood and kindling for us beforehand.

Angie and I both drink red wines for the most part, and being in Newfoundland, we tried a couple of wines that we hadn’t had before. For example….

This should be a wine of the week, because it was a great Cabernet Sauvignon blend at a fantastic price. It comes from California, and is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with some Merlot & Petite Sirah to make a deliciously interesting wine. And while we were there, it was on sale for $13.99 a bottle. You can get this wine across Canada, but not here in Nova Scotia, and it’s too bad, because it was an amazing value.

Did I mention that although we stayed in a cabin, we didn’t really rough it!

Craig & Jackie have a hot tub on their deck, yeah it was really rough. So one evening we poured a sip and enjoyed the hot tub which overlooks George’s Lake. One of Angie’s son’s had a great line, ‘George has a really nice lake’. It was a great trip home and I really loved having Angie join us. My mom really enjoyed it as well. The drive home was a little long, 16 hours. Whew.

My wine of the week has to be the wine my brother-in-law bought for us to enjoy. As you all know, I was in Bordeaux France this past April, and my brother-in-law Craig had a special bottle of French wine for us to enjoy.

We enjoyed the 2015 and so it had time to age nicely. It’s a Merlot dominant wine with Cabernet Sauvignon blended in, and it was the best Bordeaux wine I’ve tasted in the $23 price range. This is one of the best values under $25 I’ve tasted from Bordeaux.

It was a great trip home and I want to thank my family for being awesome hosts.

Also, got to spend some time with my girl Maggie.

Well, that’s it for me for this week. Enjoy the Summer, and stay safe.

Till next week, Cheers

Darlene

Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog, knows I’m a huge Merlot fan. It’s luscious and sexy, easy to drink and very food friendly. Merlot is known as a chameleon because it adapts to many climates, taking on the character of both its location and winemaking techniques. Which makes Merlot so interesting. Depending on where its grown, and who the winemaker is, it can have subtle nuances. I find it a super interesting wine. Here are some of my favorites.

Chile is producing some fantastic Merlot wines. Chile is producing some great wines period. Although Merlot was bought to South America in the 19th Century, it wasn’t until the Chile & Argentina wine boom of the 1990’s that people started appreciating the Merlot made there. This is a great Merlot for $18.

This one is fantastic as well, also from Chile at just $20 a bottle.

Merlot is also a big grape in a Bordeaux blend. Bordeaux labels its wine by region, so it’s a little more hard to determine which has more Merlot, and which has more Cabernet Sauvignon. A Bordeaux is always a blend, and If you buy a wine from the Left Bank, regions like Haut-Medoc, Margaux or Paulliac, they will contain Merlot, but be Cabernet Sauvignon dominant. The Right Bank of Bordeaux is Merlot dominant. Regions like Saint Emilion and Pomerol. These tend to pricier Merlot wines.

This Chateau le Puy is a spectacular wine, and is a blend. 85% of this wine is Merlot with some Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon blended in. Bordeaux wines age extremely well so at $36, this is a great value.
A wine from next-door to this region, is the Château Puyfromage

This wine is also from Bordeaux, it’s also a blend, and comes frm right next-door to the region of Saint Emilion. Merlot is still the dominant grape but it’s a little more affordable at $22.79 a bottle.

This Merlot is also from France, but much more affordable, I tried it last night for the first time. Baron Philip De Rothschild Merlot is on sale in my area right now for less than $15 a bottle. I found this to be a softer Merlot, some notes of raspberry, coffee and spice. Tasty, but definitely a softer medium bodied Merlot, whereas most Merlot wines are more on the full-bodied side.

And last but not least, one of my favourite Merlot wines. California can make some beautiful Merlot wine, and this one from Paso Robles is so very good. This wine is luscious and plummy on the palate. (Plummy is a word, right?) I just love it, and it comes in that around the $25 price range.

That’s it for me for this week. Have a fun weekend. Don’t forget to put your clocks back and enjoy the extra hour sleep. and our trip to Bordeaux France is going ahead in April 2022, check out all the details here. I would love to see you on the trip.

Darlene