Wines and grape alcohols

[Day of Light]

A long title to just refer to stuff made with grapes that gets you drunk. Since Geddy loves that fine wine life I figured that perhaps some of you would as well. ;)

 

What do you look for in a wine? Or rather what are your favorite taste characteristics? Favorite grape varieties? What was the most expensive wine you've ever had?

 

Can't ignore the distilled side of things as well: grappa? brandy? Tell me your favorites.

 

The list of questions goes on... just talk about it. :)

 

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On the more dol side of things, I've sort of expanded my taste palette for beer and wine in the last year and I always find it fun to take people's suggestions on what I should drink next.

 

I grew up in a family that made its own wine which resulted in my favoring a type of wine I can't quite find yet outside of our cellar. It's a rose, but a very dark rose, made from blending merlot with some sort of white grape variety--the skin of the white grapes stays in contact with the juice and once it's ready to drink it just creates this very rich and mealy yet acidic wine. I'm still looking for its commercial twin.

[JohnRogers]

I seem to have been on a five year Malbec kick, really enjoying the Layer Cake Malbec lately. I like rich, fruit forward, red California blends with a clean finish.

 

Oddly I'm just getting into brandy now. I think I have the E&J XO but I'll need something to compare it to.

[pjbear05]

Way back home in Detroit, long before I became a craft beer freak, I was heavily into wine of all sorts. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

 

The Good: We had a place in the D called Gibb's World Wide Wines that was my go to place, family run, and they had everything good. If I needed some good vino I could depend on Tim and his people to deliver, from inexpensive table wines to top of the line from around the world. Back then I was hard into German Rieslings, usually Auslese or Spatlese, with a Trockenbeernalesse (very sweet-desert wine) when I needed it, plus an occasional bottle of bubbly or Italian or whatever I needed. Probably no longer exists-that area is "the hood" now.

 

The Bad: Too many of them, from Boone's Farm and Mad Dog 20/20, to this local yokel that "distributed" a brand "Cadillac Club", cheap wino quality- Sweet Red, Sweet White, some cheap slop called "Nature Boy", and of course, the wino's best friend-Muscatel. Bad stuff, but then there was:

 

The Ugly: Once one of my "brutha" co-workers hands me a plastic cup of some "wine" and tells me "drink up." I taste it and immediately spit it out, saying, "God damn, McCoy what the f--k was that s--t, f--kin' hair tonic?' Turns out it was Wild Irish Rose, which I actually see these days at the local convenience store by my house. I drank some bad wine in my young and foolish days, but that stuff was THE WORST!

 

These days, I'll get wine when the occasion or meal calls for it. Lambrusco with pasta or Italian, a Gewurztraminer with Easter ham and a Riesling with Thanksgiving turkey, and always, a bottle of Moscato to ring in the New Year. Plus, my house is never without my favorite after dinner drink, Armagnac

 

In vino veritas, indeed. Cheers!

Edited February 3, 2017 by pjbear05