Hot Weather = Chilled White Wine Time

I must say that, in general, I used to prefer red wines to whites.  However, seeing as it has been in the high 90's - low 100's here, I have gravitated towards the cool, refreshing, white wines.  And I've liked it.

Beaulieu Vineyard's Coastal Estates 2007 Chardonnay was not bad.  On the nose you could notice citrus scents that fell to pineapple and sour green apples.  It has a bit of a bite at first sip.  This lessens as the wine warms in your mouth.  Green apple flavors give way to lemon and limes, with a hint of vanilla on the finish.  Don't take your next sip immediately but note what the flavors do.  They linger and mingle like a Christian congregation after church or as family does when we attempting to say goodbye.

For $9 a bottle, I'd say it's worth it!  It will especially go well with Chicken Francese or with swiss cheese.

Our First Official Tasting: A Tale of Two Cabs

Tonight's wines are two 2007 Cabernet Sauvignons.  One is by BV Coastal Estates and the other is from Texas' own Becker Vineyard, Iconoclast.  But for now, we will refer to them as Elephant and Heart- A  mystery as to who is who and named for the lovely wine glass charms they adorn.  This is a winedummy Official Taste Test.  The wine bottles are covered with elegantly taped newspapers so I cannot see the labels and I carefully removed the tops and corks without looking at the names.  I gave my husband two glasses (with the aforementioned wine glass charms) and told him to pour one into the elephant glass and write an "E" on the paper covering that bottle and the other into the heart glass and write an "H" on the paper covering that bottle.  Any mistakes in this process are his fault.

Elephant has sweet fruit notes in it's aroma with very delicate spices- lighter than a typical cab.  As for the palate is is unexpectedly heavy on the tannins.  There are some dark fruit notes but they are not very sweet.  It also has a medium light body.  (By the way, there were limited tasting notes on the respective websites but pretty good ones on the bottles.  Unfortunately these are covered right now so we're going blind.)

Heart had a stronger spice on the nose and a slight fruit note.  This is more similar to the typical cab smell.  The palate had much lighter tannins and a good bite with the spices.  If I let the wine sit a while in my mouth I could pick up some fruit hints.

So who was better?  Hold on- one more glass for the comparison.  Heart is definitely the winner.  I let Daisy try, but she was indifferent.  I told you she was not helpful in wine tastings.  but can you really expect one who used to eat poop be discerning between wines?  Anyways, Heart is smoother and I like it better.

And now, the wines revealed:

Elephant is Coastal Estates.  The bottle proclaims "...layers of ripe blackberries, cherries, and spices.  Smooth tannins envelope the dark fruit flavors while toasty vanilla oak nuances linger on the finish."  So go team, we noticed the dark fruits.  I disagree on the tannin level, and I'll have to try again for the vanilla.

And that leaves Becker Vineyard's Iconoclast as Heart, tonight's fave!  This bottle says nothing about tasting notes and neither does the website.  Sorry guys, you'll have to take my word on this one...

Good luck.

Happy drinking!

-winedummy

P.S. Becker Vineyard's wines are only offered in TX.  Sorry all y'all who aren't able to find it.  (Yes, all y'all is grammatically correct.)(Depending on who you ask.)