Wine Lovin Women

Throw a wine tasting party…here is how A wine tasting party is great for socializing, discovering new wines and gaining some new favorites thru fun experimentation. This type of party is one of the easiest theme party’s to hold since its focus is on the wine.   Throwing a wine tasting party isn’t drudgery like hosting can sometimes turn out to be, while you are working hard you miss out on your own party, this is pretty much a guarantee good time for everyone. A successful party of any kind comes from the preparation ahead of time so you will first need to decide on a theme. Here are some ideas : Blind taste testing ; cover the bottle with brown bag, wine bags, wrapping paper or colored  tissue.   Vertical tasting ; you taste the same variety of wine from same producer  but different years Theme tasting ; wines can all be white or all red, the same grape such as a Pinot, same region or by price point   Region tasting ; you can have wine from same region which you ha

Bad Day…..Good Bottle We all have those days in which we wished we had never climbed out of bed.  Tuesday was that day for me. By the time I was leaving the office for the day I just wanted to pound my supervisor into the ground and never look back.  But I simply clocked out and got in my car for the long commute home.  It was raining (a northwest normal) and the traffic was crawling at a snail’s pace.  My windshield wipers were hard at work but 10 miles into the commute, my passenger side wiper decided it had enough.  It flung itself onto the hood of my car but thank goodness I was crawling in the slow lane and was able to pull over to the shoulder. I put my emergency flashers on and carefully stepped out of my car and around to the passenger side.  Unbeknown to me, I had parked right by a very large mud puddle and since it was dark outside, proceeded to step into the puddle that swallowed my feet up to my ankles. I quickly groped my way along the hood, retrieved th

Gift of wine A Gift; something given voluntarily to show favor towards someone or honor an occasion……what a nice thought and I wanted to honor gift giving by writing about the gift of wine.   Many times we either give or receive wine as a gift I wanted     to take a moment to honor the thought and the thoughtfulness that goes into selecting.   I know when I am given wine as a gift I feel very honored, I know the thought was put into the selection , maybe it is something the giver has even tried , loved and wanted to share….that is special.   I just wanted to say thank you and encourage all to give the gift of wine and wish you Happy New Year of giving wine in 2014! Cheers, Denise

Box Wine Well I did it, took one for the team, this is for you our readers…. I tried box wine.   I can admit I did not approach this with an open mind, I fully expected   to be horrible.   I will admit I was wrong in a few cases and correct in the rest. Box wine now has given me a whole new meaning to "juice box". Box wine does have its advantages, it’s easy to pack, no glass so if you got camping, back packing or kayaking you don’t have the empty glass bottle to worry about and the packaging is eco-friendly.   The word is that you can keep these after opening for up to 4 weeks….guess I will have to test this theory also   to see if maybe time will improve some of these…doubtful. Cabernet Sauvignon I only have one that I would say was drinkable out of all, which would be Black Box. The rest were thick with tannins and sharp on the palette Black Box , This was the best of the reds I tried, it paired well with the smores when we were camping, if I had to choose a b

A Simple Post   Sometimes there is nothing extraordinary going on in our lives but we are busy with day to day living.   We go to work, come home, take care of our families and just live.   Before we know it time has passed and we haven’t seen our dearest friends.   We reach out to them with a phone call and set a time and place to meet. Tonight I met up with my dearest friend and shared a meal with some good wine.   The Italian restaurant was new to me and I enjoyed not only the food (ok so my choice of main entrée was not the best) but a very nice bottle of Barbera. (The waiter was very good too J )   Shame on me for not writing down the name but if you write to me at winelovinwomengmail.com   I will tell you where the restaurant is located.   It’s the only Barbera on the menu so it won’t take too much effort to call them and ask.     I will be going back to the restaurant because there were dishes I really should/wanted to try but decided to step out and try some

Corks Two good friends decided to share their love and adventures in wine and here we are one year later… It’s hard to believe that it has already been over a year since Denise and I started our blog.   The wines we have tasted……the people we have met……the adventures into the sultry summer nights …….yes, you know who you are.   We have enjoyed every moment and have already begun our second year with new ideas and bottles of wine yet to be tasted. As I look back through my wine tasting notes, journals and corks I realized I had an awesome year tasting a huge variety of wine.   I’m now on a personal acquaintance with my grocery store wine department and I’ve tasted almost every label on the shelf. (Let me say I sampled my fair share of bad wine this past year).   Walla Walla and the grapes from Horse Heaven Hills have produced some of my very favorite wines and I give a big THANK YOU to MOR MOR Bistro in Poulsbo, Washington for introducing me to the small production vintners

Not my father’s Zinfandel I remember when I was a child my Dad making wine in the cellar, the Zinfandel grapes would arrive in the wooden crates from California and we would not be allowed to sneak a taste of the beautiful fruit. I never got a chance to try his wine however I remember his friends commenting how wonderful it was.   So I thought in honor of my father on Father’s Day I would explore Zinfandel. Zinfandel originated in Croatia, though many think of it as primarily a California wine, it is also widely grown in Italy.   However there is nothing more typical California than Zinfandel, some of the best California growing regions are: Paso Robles, Lodi and Sonoma/Napa.   Lodi is the self-proclaimed Zinfandel Capital producing over 40 percent of the California Zinfandel with vines dating back to the 1880’s.    These old vines produce a distinct color and multi-deminalsional characteristics in a red wine from dark berry flavor that has layers of spice, plum, pepper and vanill