another wine whine

the brown eyed girl popped her cooking cherry at my place last night.  yeah, it was her first time cooking here.  she made a really good pizza for us.  pizza on indo naan bread.  yep.  don’t knock it less you tried it.  olive oil, roasted tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms, mozzarella, and fresh basil.  just outstanding.  i cooked up some organic squash as a side dish.  yellow squash, zucchini, shallots, olive oil, thyme, and sage.  sounds good, huh?  well, believe me it was.   

i wanted to score a nice bottle of vino for the occasion.  we’d been out and about and on the way home we stopped a local vino institution known for carrying high quality stuff.  i wandered around a bit and picked up a bottle of really really good ruby red california port.  for those that are interested it’s, ficklin vineyard’s 10 year old tawny port.  probably the best port this side of spain and portugal.  the bottle of vino i picked up was another story.

i decided on a local winery’s zinfandel.  another of the last standing and producing wineries here in socal.  not the one in the painting blog or the recent tasting place.  supposedly local grapes.  zin grapes.  still searching for the holy zin grail.  at any rate, it was a 2001 galleano winery, zinfandel.  it wasn’t cheap either.  we were both excited about tasting it.

of course, it turned out to be another in a long line of expensive vino that turns out to be crapola.  the stuff was not good.  way to sweet and oxidized.  we couldn’t finish it.  i actually tossed out a bit less than half a bottle along with what was left in our glasses.  it was that bad.  plus it’s something i rarely if ever do.

my point?  once again.  find inexpensive wine you like and stick with it.  pure and simple.  going outside that vino realm is a crap shoot at best.  plus those are words to live by.  trust me.

for those that missed it here’s one of john budicin’s lovely oils once again.

‘are they zn?’

jmh