the sauce
Considering there has to be some kind of incredible reason for me to buy a wine over $20, I would not consider myself a wine connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. To me it's just something nice to drink by itself and I've never been good at noticing a wine pairs particularly well with food. I don't even like to drink alcohol with food. I like coke. I know, I'm a philistine. If I order a beer before I eat at a restaurant I'll usually stop drinking it when my food comes.
So, as simplistic as this wine probably is, goddamn it's about as tasty a wine as I've had. I mean, I've had some pretty good wine but I can just sip or slam this stuff. It tastes like blueberry deliciousness and it's not Boone's Farm simple or anything. Yum. It's Layer Cake 2006 Shiraz. Lots of people love it, but this guy about had an apoplexy over the marketing campaign (note he hadn't tried the wine).
I'm more of a beer lover usually, but this fall it's been all about the wines. Mostly because I don't like those sweetsy winter style ales. I prefer the clean, crisp spring beers. The one that's out right now that I'm loving, I've only seen in 22oz. bottles but it was a pleasant surprise. I love Descutes Brewery but still was stunned at how much of a beer I like this Hop Trip IPA. It's clean and hoppy and just oh so drinkable. It comes close to being as perfect as the Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA in pure yumminess. On their website they call it "the session beer for beer geeks" and I think both Hop Trip and the 60 minute fall into that category.
I did discover the amazing taps of Seattle's Brouwer's this week where they oh my god have Rasputin Imperial Stout on nitro (basically that means "like guinness", only this beer is a lot more hard core than Guinness).
I did also have the Corsendock X-Mas 2007 beer. Belgians and winter seasonals aren't really my thing, but I have to admit I was impressed. The Corsendock Abbey Pale was a little more to my liking.
Whoo. Who knew I was such a lush! I could have written about beer for another page or so. Here's to the sauce!