Riebeek Cellars

Name: Riebeek Cellars Variety: Viognier  Region: Swartland Country: South Africa Year: 2015  Price: Regular Price $12 Sale $7.95 Winery review:     Washington Post  This is a luscious viognier, featuring a deep yellow color, that explodes with juicy peach and honeysuckle flavors. Viognier can easily become flabby, but this one manages to keep its figure within bounds. I recommend this for immediate, lip-smacking enjoyment.  My review:  This one was weird for me. It was sweet but not overpoweringly so, I feel that the last taste might not have left my mouth when I had this because it was not flabby as the description stated. To me it was sweet stopped then became kinda bland and stopped at the end nothing really good but did leave a neat kinda tangy feeling in the back of my mouth that lasted a few lip smacks rather fun to try but again not one I would personally buy nor recommend aside just to try it. Meh was my overall feeling of this one sadly.   ***I did not eat anything with this wine***

Crane Lake

Name:Crane Lake Variety:White Zinfandel Region: California Country:USA Year:2013 Price $5.95 Winery review:     Light pink wine with floral and tropical aromas: flavors of strawberry, peach and raspberry with a touch of sweetness. This wine is an easy sipping wine that also pairs well with a wide variety of foods ranging from crab cakes or pâté to spicy Asian dishes, glazed ham, and grilled sea bass.   My review:  So went to the vintage cellar at an off time on Thursday and have now found out they have a policy for signing into time slots for wines this is new I am not sure if i need to sign in to get credit but anyhow. This wine going in I felt that I was going to have a bad time because as per usual with white wines they are a bit too sweet for my taste. This wine wasn't as over the top as I would have thought at first so it was a pleasant surprise also hearing about the price made me very glad to have tried it since I was able to tell a friend and she came in afterwards and bought a few after tasting it. Again not up my alley the sweetness that comes from the fruitiness I personally don't like but still glad that I tried it since it was better than I would have thought at first glance.   ***I did not eat anything with this wine***

Intro for Spring 2016 wine class

I have taken this class before but decided to take it another time here as pass fail for fun on my last semester. I feel that I appreciate wine far more after taking the class because I was forced to try a fair bit of them and honestly me retaking the class because I will be able to try more stuff and keep myself at the required number of credits.

So far I have drank a fair bit of wines but have found that I like red wines like Merlot and others like it with the really strong bitterness and others with that whole mouth puckering feeling. Sweet wines honestly annoy me because its very over powering but I can appreciate some of them but don't want to drink them of my own accord.

Because of this class I have tried mixing cheese and wines and also mixing eating meats and fish with wines but again I am not sure what I will try to do this semester but I have also found that I adore goat cheese so I may go back to eats and try mixes of cheese and such this semester and I feel that I will learn more cheese wise too.

A side note but I hope I would be able to do wine blogs on outside wines and put them in place of the weekly allowed wines from Vintage Cellar I will email this question but if this is read before I send my email asking then that would be cool too.

Wine & Cheese Paring 1

The three Cheeses that I ate where vermont chreemry goat cheese, Meadow creek Dairy Grayson, and French Belletoile Triple cream Brie. The Three wines were "Le Clou", Bogle and Dibon. Sadly their pictures dont fit in additon to the current pictures so if theyre needed I can add them. I didn't know which were suppose to be done with which so I went round robin with the wines and the cheeses. I can safely say though that the smelly Grayon doesn't go with anything. the goat cheese seemed to go with the Bogle and the brie went with all of the wines.

Le Clou

Name:Le Clou(the full name is long) Variety:Macon-Peronne Region: Burgundy Country:France Year:2012 Price $7.95 Winery review:    Made from 100% Chardonnay. Sustainable agriculture: very low use of chemicals.  Their philosophy is to produce a wine in the traditional style of Mâcon, with minimal intervention and not use of Oak.  The soils is made of Clay and Limestone (Argilo-Calcaire) and the parcels are located right next to Viré Clessé Appelatio.  A light golden hue, floral aromas. Intense, clean and fresh on the palate. Citrus notes, bold acidity. Excellent match to seafood with butter or cream sauces or rich blue cheeses.  My review:  I was very confused at first when the server went at length to talk about the ground and other features the wine grew up in and they made it a point to say low amounts of chemicals were used thus the flavor would be different. So like I have done with all the other whites that I have tried these last weeks I tried my best to expect something different and not have a negative mindset going in. I was not convinced yet again sadly. Although I say this I can definitely tell that this wine is a step up in grade if you will to the other whites that I have tried before. I don't fully know the vocabulary to explain what I tasted but the best way that I can explain it is that it wasn't as sharp as other whites that I've had before.I wouldnt recommend this to any college students since at 20 bucks you should know ahead of time if you like it or not but it was a nice little try to say the least.   ***I did not eat anything with this wine***