*** I received this wine as a sample. ***

On April 30^th, I announced I was hosting this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday.  And, yes, folks…today is the big day, the day wine lovers everywhere are posting on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Instagram, and right here in the comment section about “A Glass After a Bad Day at Work.”  In few days, I’ll have a WBW #77 wrap-up post, so don’t forget to drop me an email (or comment on this post, on my Facebook wall, or on Twitter). And if you are posting about WBW on Twitter or Pintrest, be sure to use the #WBW77 tag, this way we can all see it.

In the meantime, here are my thoughts for this month’s theme.

Last week was a pretty good week at work, so thankfully, as I thought about the WBW theme, it was all hypothetical for me.  Still, the drama queen in me knows that when I come home feeling moody, I want a wine that is moody with me, A wine that will let me embrace my grumpiness, but at the same time be brooding enough to distract me from me stormy mood.  Nine times out of ten, that means I will grab a Zinfandel.

The 2008 Ottimino Rancho Bello Vineyard (winery) is from the Russian River Valley in California.  The wine had a deep ruby color with the slightest fleck of dark purple.  On the nose, there were blueberries, black cherries, pomegranates, and raspberries mixed with cinnamon, cloves, and a hint of vanilla.  In the mouth, there were blueberries, black cherries, pomegranates, and hints of cloves, vanilla, and white pepper.  The wine had big tannins, good, acidity, and high alcohol.

Is this worth a glass after work? It’s worth more than one!  What are you waiting for?  At an SRP of $30, this wine is one the high end for opening after work, but it is worth it, particularly on those nights where you’re looking for something that is big and bold. It’s exactly the type of wine I would want to open after a bad day because there is so much complexity in the wine, I could spend the evening just sipping it and losing myself in the lusciousness.  At the same time, the great balance makes it enjoyable a good, food-friendly wine, even on those days that aren’t so bad.

Question of the Day: What wine would you open after a bad day at work and why would you picked that wine to wash away your bad day (obviously)?

Suggested Retail Price: $30
Received as a sample.
Overall: 4.5 Corks

Read more about Zinfandel:

A Zinfandel That Rocked My World

A Storybook Day & A Storybook Wine

Octavin Wine Night at Lima

Zin Madness Shared By Two

Hi Alleigh!
I would love it if you could just tell me how you chose your ‘name.’

Admittedly, it’s not that great of a story.

Using my first name to write the blog just didn’t have the feel I was looking for.  I thought of using Alleigh almost immediately because it’s a combination of real first name (Allison) and my middle name.  Plus, even though I never went by a nickname growing up, Alleigh (or Ali, Alli, etc) is a nickname for Allison.

When I suggested it to Hubby and to a couple of my girlfriends, everyone loved it.  So, I tried it out, and it just seemed to click.  I’ve been blogging as Alleigh ever since.

Cheers!
Alleigh

Do you have a question?  Don’t be shy!
Send me an email, leave your question as a blog comment,
post it on Facebook, or ask me on Twitter!

*** I received this wine as a sample. ***

2009 Binyamina Gewurztraminer Late Harvest Reserve

Work last week was very busy.  In fact, the last few weeks have been full of last minute projects, unexpected fire drills, and a lot of late nights. I far prefer it to be busy at work than for things to be very slow, but I just wish things didn’t get so chaotic so quickly.  In the end, it was one of those weeks where even after I came home, I spent as much time on my blackberry as I did trying to enjoy the evening with Hubby.

The 2009 Binyamina Gewürztraminer Late Harvest Reserve (winery) is from the Upper Galilee region of Israel.  The wine was made with 100% Gewürztraminer grapes, 20% of which were positively affected by botrytis.  It had a medium golden yellow.  On the nose, there were apricots, mangoes, pineapples, honeydew melons, and honey.  In the mouth, there were apricots, pineapple, and honeydew melons followed by hints of honey.  The wine was full-bodied with a slight syrupiness and ok acidity.

Is this worth a glass after work?  Definitely!  If you see this wine in the store, grab it; you won’t be disappointed. At $25, this wine pushes the reaches of most wallets for an every day wine, but if you have a spicy dish on the menu for dinner, this is a wine that would make a great accompaniment.   I could have used a touch more acidity to balance out the sweetness, but overall, it was a very enjoyable wine with beautiful flavors.  I paired it with Hubby’s lamb vindaloo and curried cauliflower, which was an outstanding combination.  Hubby was practically laughing at me for how much I liked the pairing.

Question of the Day: Do you enjoy drinking sweet wines on their own?  Have you tried pairing a sweet wine with spicy food?  Do you have a favorite combination?

Suggested Retail Price: $25
Received as a sample.
Overall: 4 Corks

Read more about Kosher wines:

Red C Cabernet: Classic California Cab in Every Sip

Go For Golan Heights

Going Kosher with Ella Valley Vineyards

Springtime Sauvignon Blanc

Dear Alleigh:
I saw Groupon for an online wine store and wanted to buy it, but didn’t because I wasn’t sure how safe it was to order wine online.  Do you ever order wine online?

The short answer to this is absolutely!  I love ordering wine online because it gives me access to wines on my wish list, even if I’m not able to find them in one of my local wine stores.  I know that not all states allow wine shipments to individuals, and while I sometimes encounter difficulties, I can usually make the purchases I want.

There is, however, a caveat to my advocacy of online wine buying—I don’t usually do it in the summer.  Having a bottle or six riding around all-day in the back of an un-air-conditioned delivery truck can be a recipe for disaster.  So, I tend to focus on wines that I can buy locally during the hottest months.

That said, some wine stores and wine clubs will allow you to buy online during the summer, but then wait for cooling fall shipping temperatures to send the wine out into the world.  I’m a particular fan of this because it allows me to take advantage of online sales, but not have to worry about trying to time my pushing of the “purchase” button with an August “cold” snap.

So, if you’re thinking about buying from an online store but have been a little gun-shy, definitely give it a try.  Price-wise it isn’t always worth it because shipping wine can get very expensive, so it is worth doing a little comparison shopping.  However, it definitely opens up the world of wine because it means you’re no longer limited to what you can find in your local wine store.

Cheers!
Alleigh

Do you have a question?  Don’t be shy!
Send me an email, leave your question as a blog comment,
post it on Facebook, or ask me on Twitter!

*** I received this wine as a sample. ***

Last Thursday in DC felt like summer had arrived, and even after I mild winter, I forgot what it’s like to wear a suit when the weather turns hot and humid.  When I left the house in the morning, it was warm, but not unbearable.  However, when combined with a packed metro and a several block walk to the office, I was definitely feeling the heat by the time I walked into my office.  The heat hasn’t been turned off in my office building yet, so on top of everything else, my office was particularly warm and humid.  By the time I finally arrived home at the end of the day, I couldn’t wait to take off my suit jacket and pour a nice cold glass of wine.

2010 Lucien Albrecht Riesling Reserve

The 2010 Lucien Albrecht Riesling Reserve (winery) is from the Alsace region of France and is made with 100% Riesling grapes.  The wine was a light straw yellow.  On the nose, there was wet stone, flower petals, and a touch of gasoline.  In the mouth, there were wet stones and flower petals.  The wine was dry with a light body and lime-like acid.

Is this worth a glass after work? Sure…you won’t be drinking anything out of the ordinary, but you’ll have a decent, reliable glass of wine.  At an SRP of $18, this wine is perfect for a spring or summer workday.  It’s light and food-friendly, unpretentious and easily drinkable.  I paired the wine gilled salmon with chimichurri and steamed green beans, which was nice combination.  This was Hubby’s and my first time grilling with chimichurri, and we really enjoyed it!  Overall, the wine was exactly what I was looking for—a reliable and refreshing glass of white.

Question of the day: Are you a chimichurri fan?  Do you have a have favorite ways to cook with it? 

Suggested Retail Price: $18
Received as a sample.
Overall: 3 Corks

Read more about wines from France:

Nostalgia, Lady Marmalade, and Moulin Rouge

Popping the Cork on a Wednesday Night

New Year's Eve-Eve Bubbly Celebration

Spicing Up Life

While talking about my blog at physical therapy, one of the PT assistants asked me this question and I thought it was worth sharing:

Dear Alleigh—
I grew up in a household that doesn’t drink wine.  However, my friends are starting to order wine when we go out for dinner.  I want to join them, but the red wines they order taste bitter, and I don’t enjoy them.  Do you have any recommendations for ways to branch out into wine and away from my usual vodka and orange?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about red wine recommendations for a Pinot Noir drinker who was looking to try other lighter red wines, but that doesn’t really address the how a new wine drinker starts out.

My recommendation for people who are just starting to experiment with wine is to go with something light and white.  And, if you tend to prefer sweeter mixed drinks, you might also want to try a white wine that has a touch of sweetness.  That said, I wouldn’t go with something that is going to feel like the syrup bottle has been added to the wine.

Starting off with a good Riesling is probably a good bet, and you can’t go too wrong with one like the Sawtooth Riesling, for example.  It has a touch of sweetness, but is still very food friendly and, at $10, it isn’t going to break the bank.  So, if you if it’s not your thing, you don’t have to feel guilty about not finishing the bottle.

Another option is to try a Verdejo or Sauvignon Blanc.  The Shaya Old Vine Verdejo and the Edna Valley Vineyard Paragon Sauvignon Blanc, for example, are both affordable, easy to drink wines. The Verdejo is mostly lemons and granny smith apples, and the Sauvignon Blanc has more tropical fruits like pineapple and mango, but they’re both light with some great fresh flavors.

I actually discovered my love of wine by drinking both the red and the white Mouton Cadet.  Admittedly, I haven’t tried the wine in more than 10 years, though, so maybe it’s time to revisit my wine roots a little.

Question of the Day:  Do you remember what wines you were drinking when you first started to enjoy wine?

Cheers!
-Alleigh

Do you have a question?  Don’t be shy!
Send me an email, leave your question as a blog comment,
post it on Facebook, or ask me on Twitter!

*** I received this wine as a sample. ***

Monday was supposed to be a quiet day at work, one of those days where both my boss and The Big Boss were out of town, and even though there was work to do, the pace was supposed to be slower.  For some reason, though, it just didn’t work out that way.  From the moment I walked into the office, the emails were flying and the phone was ringing.  Much of work revolved around preparing for next week, which is when a big project of mine is due. However, since it’s still a whole week away, I wrongly thought that it would be a less chaotic preparation.

As if that wasn’t enough to leave my head spinning, I finished the day with a doctor’s appointment for my hip.  Long-time readers may remember that I started running about two years ago, and a year ago, I ran my first half marathon.  Since then, running just became part of my life, like drinking wine.  However, I developed hip pain at the beginning of this year.  Well, months of anti-inflammatories, physical therapy, and a second opinion later, the doctor told me on Monday that I have a muscle tear.  I’d been trying to avoid a cortisone shot in the hope that I would heal on my own, but that just wasn’t happening.  So, Monday evening, I had the shot.

By the time I got home Monday, I was exhausted.  Between work, the doctor, and the shot, I just wanted to lay on the couch and relax.  So, Hubby made dinner while I had some wine.

The 2010 Great Sense Vinho Verde is from Portugal and is made with 40% Arinto,  30% Loureiro, and 30% Trajadura grapes.  The wine had a medium yellow color.  On the nose, there were limes, granny smith apples, and a touch of honeysuckle.  In the mouth, there were limes, granny smith apples, pineapples, and hints of chalk dust, parsley, and honeysuckle.  The wine had a light body, bright acidity, and the slightest touch of sweetness on the finish.

Is this worth a glass after work? Definitely!  If you see this wine in the store, grab it; you won’t be disappointed.  At $6, this one has one of the best quality:price ratios have seen in a long time.  It’s a solidly enjoyable wine with something a little different.  It’s the perfect wine to take on a picnic and has a low alcohol content (9.5% abv), so it’s not going to unknowingly catch up with you as you sip away.  I paired this with lobster cakes and steamed green beans, which worked well, although I think the wine would be better with a lighter fish or with a salad.  All in all, though, it was exactly what I needed at the end of a busy day.

Question of the Day: Vinho Verde seems to be showing up more and more in my local wine store.  Have you noticed the same thing?  And, have you tried any ones recently that you’ve enjoyed?

Suggested Retail Price: $6
Received as a sample.
Overall: 3.5 Corks

Read more about white wines:

Singing with My Grüner Veltliner

A Riesling Rave

Reds, Whites, and Bios! Oh, My!

Did I Just Drink Bourbon or Chardonnay?

When I first started blogging, Australian wines frequented my wine glass.  However, I slowly started replacing my Australian Shiraz cravings with juicy California Zinfandels, and the next thing I knew, there wasn’t a wine from down under to be found in my wine rack.  Clearly, I’m not the only one who started leaving Australian wines behind because that was the topic Wine Blogging Wednesday #76—Australian Comeback Kid-The Barossa Boomerang.

WBW turned out to be the perfect opportunity for me to fix my lack of Australian wine tasting.  Unfortunately, while I drank the wine, took pictures, and put together my notes, a ridiculously annoying cold left me with little energy to actually write the post, and WBW #76 came and went without a post from me.  Still, I wanted to share, so here is what should have been my post last Wednesday…

2009 Tait The Ball Buster

Sunday evening, after a morning of grocery shopping and an afternoon with finishing my first sweater at my monthly knitting group get together, I came home to a night of blogging, more knitting, and watching my favorite Sunday night TV shows.  Hubby said he was making a beef stir-fry for dinner, so I twisted off the top of my Australian Shiraz and settled in.

Tait The Ball Buster 2009 (winery) was from the Barossa Valley, Australia.  The wine was made from 73% Shiraz, 15% Merlot, and 12% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and had a dark, purplish-ruby color.  On the nose and in the mouth, there were blackberries and black cherries with hints of chocolate dust, prunes, and molasses.  The wine was medium-to-full-bodied with solid tannins and good acidity.

Is this worth a glass after work? Sure…you won’t be drinking anything out of the ordinary, but you’ll have a decent, reliable glass of wine.  At $16, this wine was both food-friendly and Game of Thrones-friendly.  As a matter of fact, it turned out to be an appropriate pairing for last week’s episode, which was a real ball buster in itself.

That said, The Ball Buster didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  On the back label, Bruno Tait described the wine as “broad-shouldered, built like a stallion, and she packs an intensity of flavor,” so that is what I was expecting.  Unfortunately, though, I just didn’t find it.  The wine didn’t have enough body to be the “big, thick, juicy” wine Tait was trying to deliver.  So, while The Ball Buster was good, it just left me wanting more.

Question of the Day: Are you an Australian wine fan?  Have you noticed a change in your Australian wine purchasing habits over the last few years?

Price: $16
Purchased at Whole Foods Market
Overall: 3 Corks

Read more about wines from Australia:

Is That A Red Wine In Your Champagne Glass?

Woody Woodcutter’s Shiraz

WBW: “And just like the ocean under the moon, well, that’s the same emotion that I get from you…”

Celebrations With A First Class Shiraz

While today is normally “Mailbag Monday” at A Glass After Work, I’m going to skip it this week in favor of an exciting announcement…I’m hosting Wine Blogging Wednesday #77!

For those of you who are new to Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW), it is a designated day for wine lovers all over the globe to write on the same wine-related topic—essentially, a virtual wine tasting with a central theme.  You don’t have to be a regular wine blogger to participate, but your post (or blog comments, tweets, pins, etc.) should obviously be about this month’s topic.

So, without further ado, the theme for WBW #77 is “A Glass After A Bad Day At Work.”

We’ve all been there.  You snooze one too many times, immediately making yourself late, only to get onto a crowded metro train that breaks down and has to be offloaded (or, for those of you who drive to work, only to discover there is an 4-car pile-up that shut down the road you use for your commute).  By the time you arrive at the office, you’re really late, but ready to get working.  You start making progress and think the day might be turning around when that Blue Screen of Death pops up and gives you the virtual middle finger, erasing everything you just accomplished because you were so focused you hadn’t saved the document in over an hour.  It’s the perfect moment for you and your coworker to grab lunch because if you don’t walk away from the computer, you run the risk of chucking it out the window.  As the two of you walk out of the office, you turn to your coworker and say, “It’s only noon, but it’s been one of those days.  I could use a glass of wine.”

The question is, when you finally make it home, what glass of wine do you drink and why?  Is it an inexpensive sparkly to help lift the gloom of the day?  Maybe a brooding cult Cab to fit your dark mood?  Or, is it that expensive bottle you put aside for a special occasion but open just because you need something special?

Posts or comments should include what wine you open, why you picked that wine to wash away your bad day, and the price (or suggested retail price) of the wine.  There are no restrictions on price, country, varietal, etc.  The sky is the limit.  You just need to give us all the details so we can find the wine for after our own bad day.

On May 23, 2012, let me know your wine choice by:

• Commenting on this post (either on A Glass After Work or on the Wine Blogging Wednesday website);
• Posting on A Glass After Work’s Facebook wall;
• Tweeting me (and using the hashtag #WBW77);
• Tagging me on Pintrest (and using the hashtag #WBW77 in your pin description); and/or
• Sending me an email.

Regardless of how you decide to let me know, be sure to include the link to your blog post if you write one.  I would hate to miss linking it in the WBW #77 wrap-up.

I’d like to give a special thanks to WBW organizers Tim Elliott and Lenn Thompson for allowing me to host my first WBW.  I’ve been a frequent participant, but there is something particularly exciting about being on the other side of this fun event.

And with that, here’s hoping it’s a just a hypothetical rough day at work that inspires your post.

Cheers!

Hi Alleigh,
I’m a huge fan of your blog!  I really like your honest opinions of wine, and you often introduce me to new wines/varietals.  Can I ask one question or make a request?  Since my liquor store breaks their wines out by country/region, I don’t always know where to look for a wine after I’ve seen it on your blog.  I know you usually put it in the body of the post, but I would love to see it in the title or more prominently displayed. 

Thanks for the great read, I look forward to more wines! 

Your ever faithful, never leaving you, Sauvignon Blanc (and now Vetliner) loving reader….

Dear SB/GV lover—
Thanks for the email and for the suggestion.

The whole purpose of A Glass After Work is to share the wines I drink with the hope that my readers will go out and try the wines I love.  Some readers even let me know if they agree or disagree with my review, which is particularly fun for me. Therefore, I take requests and suggestions on how to improve and how to be more helpful to my readers to heart.

In August 2010, for example, I started posting a short summary at the bottom of each post so that readers would know the price of each wine and where I purchased it because several readers in the DC Metro area had emailed to find out where I purchased several of the wines.  At the time, I figured if a handful of readers were outgoing enough to email and ask, even more readers were probably interested in the information.  So, Hubby and I talked about it the best technological way to include this information, and he ended up building a plug-in to make it easy for me to uniformly add it on every post.

Including the information your asking for in this short summary at the end of the post would definitely make it easier for readers to use A Glass After Work when shopping in their own local wine store.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but it’s a great idea. Hubby is hard at work making a few tweaks that I hope to unroll next week.  So, be on the lookout for them!

Thanks again for the suggestion and for being a regular reader!

Cheers!
-Alleigh

Do you have a question?  Don’t be shy!
Send me an email, leave your question as a blog comment,
post it on Facebook, or ask me on Twitter!