I found the 2006 Oxford Landing, South Australia, Viognier, a pleasant summer surprise.

Aromas of musk, white flowers, and hints of apricot and peaches on the nose give way to a refreshing palate of crisp ripe pear and peaches with just enough acidity to balance the fruit.

I don’t know what the classic pairing would be but I suggest that you give this a try with Kelly’s peach-prosciutto salad for a great summer evenig meal.

Given the screwtop, this wine would work well for camping and picnics and as I write this I envision myself and Gloria in an Alpine meadow with good bread, a creamy cambozola cheese and no cares.

Enjoy.

Big House Wine’s 2005 Central Coast Syrah, “The Slammer,” is rated by some reviewers to be the best of Big House Wine’s current line.

Some reviewers recommend letting this wine breathe for awhile before drinking. I didn’t.

With plenty of blackberry jam and subtle hints of blueberry and chocolate on the nose; lots of blackberry jam on the palate; and, a hint of minerals on the finish, this wine is a bargain at a local sales price of $9.99.

The wine seems very versatile and should pair well with BBQ and other grilled meats.

Enjoy!

This Charles Smith 2007 Riesling from Washington State, Kung Fu Girl, is a great budget Riesling. With Asian pear, white peach and flowery tones on the nose and a palate of apricot, pear, a little citrus and some minerality in this off-dry Riesling, this wine combines just enough sweetness for an enjoyable summer wine. It definitely is not as acidic as those from Germany or France.

This wine pairs well with Asian food - and not because of the “name.” It makes a great picnic or camping wine because of the ease of the screwtop. It makes a great first course wine for informal get-togethers. Or, try it with a simple brunch or summer day lunch.

Shown here with seared tuna on a bed of spinach, bean sprouts and pineapple and topped with a soy, lime, ginger, and cilantro dressing and garnished with green onion tops, the combination was a wonderful warm summer evening meal out on the patio.

for camping and picnicing.

I was perusing my local liqour store a few weeks ago in anticipation of a boat camping trip and found the Big House wine display. I promptly bought several bottles, all with screw tops, and once camping I realized just how convenient the screw top was, not just for opening, but for saving the unfinished bottle. I have cork screws everywhere, including in our camp utensils, in the boat, in the truck, and several at home, but fumbling around with a corkscrew while reclining in a lounger isn’t always easy at the end of a long hot day at Lake Powell. Afterall, who needs any delays in getting the wine bottle open?

The “Prodigal Son” is a petite syrah from the Paso Robles area full of blackberry and smooth on the finish. Admittedly, Gloria and I like our wine while sitting back watching sunsets and before dinner but the wine would pair nicely with grilled meats, BBQ, and frankly with any red meat or well seasoned poultry.

And the labels are great, both the artwork and the descriptions.

In addition to the “Prodigal Son,” try “The Slammer” and/or the “Big House Red” (a blend of a dizzying array of reds - too many to list here).

I’ll do some short reviews of these other Big House wines in the near future - they’re all good.

When I’m in a hurry at the liqour store or in doubt as to what to get or conscious of my wine budget I most always seem to pick up one or more bottles of the Yellow tail Shiraz.

Gloria and I both drink this wine regularly. I like to have a bottle on hand and we regularly serve it to our friends when they drop by. Everyone always seems to enjoy it. We often take this wine camping. At $5.99/bottle it is a budget pleaser.

This wine has a nice balance of tannins, plenty of fruit, and hints of licorice and berry aromas on the nose. While inexpensive, it is nonetheless “big enough” to stand up to hearty meat dishes, although I regularly drink this wine pre-dinner with bread and cheese. When camping, it is an end of the day wine to be enjoyed while watching the sunset.

This wine is definitely one of my personal best buys and I would encourage you to try this as well as Yellow tail’s other red wines.

Sunday was Gloria’s birthday and she asked that we head up north of Durango to the mountains and “check out” some of those places we so regularly drive by without ever stopping. Of course, that also meant a favorite wine with bread and cheese along side. One of Gloria’s favorite wines, if not her favorite, is a German Riesling Auslese. The really good ones are not cheap.

The Schmitges 2005 Erdener Pralat Riesling Auslese was $72.00 for a 500 ml bottle. It was a wonderful Auslese and when paired with a good ciabatta from a local bakery, some cambozola cheese and the alpine setting, we found ourselves close to heaven, especially when sitting by ourselves in a mountan meadow above 10,000′.

The wine itself is sweet, which is a noted characteristic of any auslese, but it was balanced perfectly with enough acidity for a smooth mouth feel. Plenty of exotic fruit on the palate. This wine works well for an informal outing such as ours, an opener with soft cheeses for a get together with friends, or as a dessert wine. If you are not one to enjoy a sweet wine, then I recommend that you try a good German reisling auslese. I suspect that you will be pleasantly surprised.

Great company, great surroundings, a really nice wine on a Sunday afternoon. Happy Birthday Gloria.

During our recent Lake Powell trip, July 27 through July 30, we sampled 3 different white wines for a refreshing change of pace. Despite my earlier post about Gloria and I almost always drinking red wine, even in the heat of a Lake Powell summer, we were anxious to try something different. Besides, I owed Kelly a post or two and I was beginning to feel guilty for not having posted anything new for quite awhile. Our original plan was to pair 3 different white wines with our camp meals, write tasting notes, and to photograph those white wines with our meals all neatly layed out at our campsite and against the scenic backdrop of the Lake Powell canyon country. However, the weather changed those plans quickly as we found ourselves regularly running for the tent to get out of evening thunderstorms or hurrying through dinner in anticipation of those thunderstorms as the sky darkened every evening.

We still drank the wine; we just didn’t take the photos.

The weather changed quickly from a benign sky highlighting a beautiful salmon colored distant canyon mesa to a developing thunderstorm to a downright dark and forbidding skyline before the cloudburst.

We had carefully packed and kept on ice a 2004 Sancerre Les Boncandes, a 2005 Sancerre Viellef Vignes and a 2004 Domaines Schumberger Gewurztraminer “Fleur” from Alsace. I did keep the empty bottles in our recycling pile so I could take some pictures when I got home, but by the time I got them home, they were the worst for wear and tear and did not make good photographs.

So, what did we eat? That first night we had escargot, sauteed in olive oil and garlic, to which we added a bleu cheese sauce, and then wilted fresh spinach over the top. We served that with a chewy French bread. We then charcoal grilled ribeye steaks and asparagus. I served a 2005 Tarrica Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles with the steak, but that is a subject for another time. The second night, I charcoal grilled marinated shrimp (soy sauce/hot sauce/ginger/garlic/honey based marinade) and served the shrimp with an Asian slaw. The third night we had smoked chinook salmon with a homemade pasta salad.

Now that I’ve told you what we ate and what wines we drank, here’s the challenge.

I want you to pair these wines with the meals, excluding the grilled steak from the pairings. Be candid and please don’t hesitate to make your own recommendations - I didn’t say they were all necessarliy good or paired well with anything. Although, in fact, I have to say, that all three whites were very good. The 2004 Sancerre Les Boncandes is everything a Sancerre should be, the 2005 Sancerre Viellef Vignes is a personal favorite, and the 2004 Domaines Schumberger Gewuztraminer Fleur was what one would expect from an Alsace gewuztraminer, although personally I did not care for the “flowery” finish - but that is probably a characteristic of that particular wine. I’ll let Gloria do the research and report back.

And, maybe for fun, pair a wine, any wine, with the photos. Just imagine yourself camping at Lake Powell, laying back in a fold out lounge chair and watching the changing weather and landscape.

We are going to do that again this coming weekend!