The Lisa Life

What We Had With Dinner

I used to be such a wine snob.  I got over that though.  Now I am all about the "value wines". 

You can find decent wine that doesn't mean your kids are going to be begging for book money in college.

Australia has so many wonder imports now.  They are the new France in wine.  We had this bottle of Shiraz with our spaghetti dinner tonight and it was really nice.  Granted, for a shiraz, it could have been a bit more berry-ish but it was good.  And under ten dollars. 

Okay so the way I am holding this bottle of wine looks somewhat pornographic.  Don't go getting ideas and all.

Vino de la Tierra de Castilla

I bought a bottle of wine today that I haven't tried before. It's a Spanish white, Vino de la Tierra de Castilla, Casa Solar Blanco, 2003. I've not had a lot of Spanish wines and never a white. I find their reds to be very good, very old fashioned classic flavor.

It's a nice summer wine, light and crisp but nothing special. I should have gone with a sauvignon blanc, which is what I was orginally considering.

What I'm Sipping Right Now

Okay, so I've been really negligent on sharing what wine I am drinking this week. Guess I'm going to blog hell in a wine glass.

I'm a big fan of Australian wine. It's generally very tasty, very reasonably priced and sold just about everywhere now. Although I am a big wine fan, I have strangely never been overly fond of French wine. I like Italian wine (well duh) and lots of Chilean wine, but French never caught on with me. Ditto, Michigan and Niagara region wines.

Tonight is Hardy's Chardonnay, 2002 vintage. My friend Sally Anne in Australia laughs at me, says the Aussie wine we drink in America is cheapie wine in Australia. Hey, it's still pretty good to me. I also enjoy Penfold's Chardonnay and their Merlot.

The Hardy's is billed as "Ripe peach and tropical fruit flavours abound in this bright, refreshing chardonnay." It has a cute kangaroo stamp on the label.

Yes, I have picked wine for the cute labels. Some of them are very good, since the better vintners can afford better artwork.

On the Wine Box

If you say the words "Wine Box" to many wine lovers, they will shudder or recoil in horror. For those of us who are the common folk who love wine, wine boxes are an affordable way to enjoy wine. I too, shuddered in disgust at the first thought of wine in a foil bag shoved into a box with a spigot. When finances forced me to forgo the fifteen to twenty dollar bottles of wine I prefer, I tried a wine box.

It was surprisingly inoffensive. I enjoy chardonnays, preferably full bodied, oaky and pear infused. While the wine boxes do not offer the distinctive taste of higher end vinters, the wine is just as palatble as a house chardonnay you would order in a restaurant.

Peter Vella wine boxes seem to be the most common and are advertised as the "Best Selling Wine in America." At twelve dollars a box, equal to 4-5 bottles of wine, it's a bargin. It's smooth, crisp and light, but lacks the bite of a higher end chardonnay.

Corbett Canyon, while a bit pricier for a smaller box, is a definate cut above the Peter Vella in terms of taste. Their merlot wine box is also quite tasty.

Yes, there is a wine box in my fridge right now.