WEEKEND 12.18-12.20

Let me tell you about the weekend. After a long Friday of dealing with dopes at work, a trip to the old store was in order on the way home. Luckily I have an awesome wife that purchased dinner on her way home so my memory was wiped clean. The dinner idea had me dancing in my head. I saw this awesome bottle called Hey Mambo, so I two stepped with it. The wine had a great label, but the level of alcohol was lacking at a low for William's taste of 13.5%. The label won the battle of Friday night wine choice. With Thai food on the menu red wine is the only logical pairing right? Who is to say I'm wrong it tasted great and I had no complaints.
So anyway Saturday comes up and off to work I went, like one of the dwarfs. Looking for something different and exciting, Amy(my wife) and I went downtown to see what happens. Next thing you know we ended up at a local establishment The Princess Pub. The wine selection was long and distinguished. After a long debate in my head, I went with the recommended choice of GUINNESS. It was the thickest wine I have tasted but, it was damn good. The choice proved great with the pub fries that I chose for a starter. After we reached the bottom of our glasses we ventured onward with no plan. Amy was feeling winy so we went to the 3rd Corner. What's great with this restaurant is you get to shop for beverages instead of reading from a list. Amy found an interesting wine from Nappa labeled Edge. This particular wine was a Cabernet Sauvignon from 2007 and had the 14.4% alcohol flavor I like. The color was a nice dark red and the legs on the glass were running a marathon. The food of choice was a cheese plate that contained 5 cheeses. One of the cheeses tasted like a eraser, but the others were great. What made the dinning experience great was the people watching. We sat next to this group consisting of a grandma, grandpa, son, and grandson. when we started the grandson was calm the table had two empty bottles of wine. As we finished the cheese, the table finished the third bottle and the grandson started to come alive, with his possible father not really paying any attention to him. The father thought he was amazing and had the best tastes for wine forcing the waitress to try the wines he kept buying. My thought was he was wooing her for his son. The grandson started talking, at this time the father put him in his place with the only conversation between the two. It was awesome, that father son combo must love each other truly, madly, deeply. With all this going on, I don't want to forget the old geek with ugg like boots with his jeans tucked in, very fancy. All this action made it hard to eat the amazing mussels that we had with a loaf of bread for the juice. This could be the first time at a dinner where only one bottle was consumed. I blame the two movies that were in progress around us. Perry and the Boots, and My son the train wreck that we try to overlook, definitely no making the final cut.
Dinner done, the journey must go on. Saving time we went shopping at the restaurant and went home. The choice was white pinot griggio and a pinot noir. Although I did not taste the white, the pinot noir was once again a fun label. The name Queen of Hearts, being a fan of queens, I thought to myself it has to be fruity and delicious.
Queen of Hearts I came to find out is from Santa Barbara. Once again my mothers wine picking instinct came through. My mom picks wines by funny or fancy labels. This bottle fits that picking style. One thing I was blind to with this wine was my favorite part, the content. I'll tell you this it panned out in my favor, flavor, and sobriety then the night closed in.
Easy like Sunday morning.....the Sunday adventure began with a drive up the coast and some breakfast in Encinitas. The location, The Potato Shack which happened to be the first place we went after I proposed to Amy. The food was awesome for $8 bucks I learned how to sew a button onto jeans. That in mind it was Sunday and no Sunday morning is complete unless there is Champagne involved. Nothing like a magnum of champagne and orange juice to start a football Sunday. I did not specify which was the magnum, keep that in mind.
It's always good to have a Mimosa while you are prepping food for an awesome Christmas feast. After massaging my meat it went in the oven and my meatballs were created. All this action while watching the Chargers win strong. Let me tell you my opinion on champagne, it all taste the same. Some a little less orange tasting, but I think that's only because of my shaky pour. The bubbles make you happy and the juice makes you healthy, right?
After all the baking, it was dinner time where an awesome chili was prepared by the Mrs. For some refreshment and choice from the Horne Cellars out of New Jersey. This is a new wine club that I have recently joined. The club deals mostly in red wine and has some real nice choices that will help in my quest conquer the red wine world. The choice was pinot noir out of Santa Maria Valley named Dierberg 2005. The wine had a nice body and tons of legs. The damage a sweet 14.9% with a nice medium red color. This ended up being the best wine of the weekend. FIN

Until the end of the next bottle

Bill