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Newbie Wine lover

S

Stickysam

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Great Smokey Mountains N.C.
The wife has always loved white zin. Common brands nothing special. I have never cared for it. Well, the other day she bought a white merlot by mistake. I tryed it and I really like it. Now I'm looking for something else I might like to expand my tastes. Any sugestions?

I'm not looking for high dollar stuff. feeding 4 kids leaves little for a wine budget :)
 
Put the white zin, and merlot, down and step away .... :0

Just kidding man :D , whatever floats your boat is cool. Drink what you like, like what you drink.

If your looking to expand your wine knowledge I would recommend heading to a local "wine" store, not grocery store or liquor store, and find a knowledable sales person who can point you to wines in your price range. The other thing you can do is to hit a few wineries for tastings. The first thing you want to establish, as with cigars, is what taste profile do you like. You also need to learn to describe what it is you like, light, fruity, off dry, clean finish are some of the characteristics used to describe a white zin.

Merlots are a good place for a wine newbie to start as they are a very approachable red wine for a white wine drinker.

Have fun with it and let me know if you need any help :thumbs:

:cool:
 
NorCalCigarLover said:
The other thing you can do is to hit a few wineries for tastings.
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Wife and I did this in Oklahoma at it was a blast! If you get the chance, do this. You'll enjoy it. :cool:
 
Lopaka said:
NorCalCigarLover said:
The other thing you can do is to hit a few wineries for tastings.
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Wife and I did this in Oklahoma at it was a blast! If you get the chance, do this. You'll enjoy it. :cool:
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Here's a helpful tip. Do not, I repeat, do not eat cheese or munchies that a winery will offer when wine tasting. Water crackers and/or bread is acceptable as a palate cleanser. The munchies they offer will mask a bad wine and you will not be able to truly taste the wine. If your drinking, not tasting, then have at it.

:cool:
 
A white merlot? I was under the impression that to be a merlot it had to be made from a certain grape which is a red grape. I will need to look for this.

Anyway I am a big wine fan and I find that wine is just like cigars. Everyone has their own tastes and in order to find what you like you have to get out there and start drinking. Judging by your statement earlier you like dryer wines so maybe you could pick up a Pinot Grigio. I really like Pinot Grigio, should be along side the rest of the whites :)


Edited to add: Well I was too stupid to realize that grape skins give the wine its color not the meat of the grape. There for if the wine is not fermented with the skins it comes out a blush better known as White Merlot. Learn something new every day!
 
AaronFromPA said:
Edited to add: Well I was too stupid to realize that grape skins give the wine its color not the meat of the grape. There for if the wine is not fermented with the skins it comes out a blush better known as White Merlot. Learn something new every day!
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Yup ...... there are a couple of grapes that have a red flesh and will run red juice when crushed but I am to tired and buzzed now to go look it up in my notes :rolleyes: .
 
Don't know all that much about wine, but the fiance is from Northern California. Before I met her, I hated wine. Now I like tons of different wines, but the easiest wines for me to swallow at first (and actually still now) are Cabernet Savigons (sp?). If you like white merlot's you may like them...better than white wine, but still kinda sweet and not quite as dry as regular zinfandels. Like I said, I just started to appreciate wine, so I'm still not all that sure what I'm talking about. All I know is that wine in PA is overpriced. At least that's what she tells me! Good luck. Hope you find more that you like.


By the way, anyone hear of Monte Vina? That's her favorite, but unfortunately, she can only get Zin....they have lots of other good wines, but that's all they sell in PA.
 
No wine store here. I did find one in Asheville (60 miles away) I'll give that a try. Thanks. I see a lot of posts about Ports. I'll try one this week but I'm stuck with food store brands for now.
 
I think I found Nirvana! A board that has tow of my favorite vices - smokes and wine! :D

About 7 months ago I received my sommelier certificate from the French Culinary Institue. I ad some time do I decided to learn as much as I can about wine. It paid off tremendously :laugh:

The other night I popped open a bottle of Caymus Oak Old Vine Zin. This stuff was fantastic. the price-value ratio is incredible. The stuff retails around $12 per bottle but the quality of the wine is truly great

Another suggestion would be CigarZin by Cosentino. This runs about $15 per bottle and is a bit high in alcohol (14.5%) but it is a great Zin.

My favs are big Cabs, mainly Napa Cabs, but nothing beats a solid, fruity old vine Zin for providing a fruit forward wine that packs lots of flavor. With cigars you need to be careful, depending on the cigar you choose. You need to be able to match one with the other. So if you chose the wine first then picked your smoke and vice versa. For example, a big Cab will crush a smoke like Baccarat, much too mild. But it will match up quite nicely with a Trinidad TTT or a good R & J Maduro.

Enjoy and I look forward to more chats.
 
slider9499 said:
About 7 months ago I received my sommelier certificate from the French Culinary Institue. I ad some time do I decided to learn as much as I can about wine. It paid off tremendously :laugh:

The other night I popped open a bottle of Caymus Oak Old Vine Zin. This stuff was fantastic. the price-value ratio is incredible. The stuff retails around $12 per bottle but the quality of the wine is truly great

Another suggestion would be CigarZin by Cosentino. This runs about $15 per bottle and is a bit high in alcohol (14.5%) but it is a great Zin.

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Congrats on getting your certificate :thumbs: , not an easy task at all.

I'm going to go look for the Caymus today, what a great QPR wine!. Not a huge fan of the Cosentino Wines here but I do love the CigarZin name, maybe I'll have to revisit that wine.

By the way, anyone hear of Monte Vina? That's her favorite, but unfortunately, she can only get Zin....they have lots of other good wines, but that's all they sell in PA.
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What a coincidence, that is the bottle I opened last night, a 2000 MonteVina Terra d'Oro SHR Field Blend Zinfandel. Received a case of this as a wedding gift and have very much enjoyed this wine. This is a biggy ! decant for at least an hour.

:cool:
 
slider9499 said:
I think I found Nirvana! A board that has tow of my favorite vices - smokes and wine! :D

About 7 months ago I received my sommelier certificate from the French Culinary Institue
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serious congrats on that one. Anyone here ever visit the watkins glen in NY to visit the wineries(SP)? Me and my wife went up for three days on our honeymoon. We had an awesome time and I learned a lto about wine though obviously not as much as some of you here. Mostly I learned the different tastes and some of the lingo. The people are great and wine testing routes are a superb way to learn...and get absolutly &%*$ faced for about 5 bucks :laugh: .

Since some of you. like me are in the general area it might be a trip worth taking. A place called "Old Hickory" makes a wine called liquid wisdom that I simply love with a cigar. Very sweet wine with almost an apple finish....only bought one bottle...dumb dumb dumb
 
AaronFromPA said:
Anyone here ever visit the watkins glen in NY to visit the wineries(SP)?  Me and my wife went up for three days on our honeymoon.  We had an awesome time and I learned a lto about wine though obviously not as much as some of you here.  Mostly I learned the different tastes and some of the lingo.  The people are great and wine testing routes are a superb way to learn...and get absolutly &%*$ faced for about 5 bucks  :laugh: .
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I am right in the heart of the Finger Lakes AVA and frequently tour the wineries on the western shore of Cayuga Lake and Eastern shore of Seneca Lake.

It is good fun, but I have to say I think there's a lot of mediocre (overly sweet, boring rieslings) wine made here. There are, of course, a few great ones too (Herman J. Weimer, Dr. Frank). The other wineries seem to have a lot of yearly variation; sometimes there're really good wines, sometimes not.

There's not much in the "cigar pairing" category here, as the climate is really not suited for red varieties. I just default to CA/OR/WA for domestic reds as they're cheaper and better (generally).
 
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