Day 327 - Benefactor Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon (2014)

David and I ENJOY grocery shopping.  I know that many people dislike it.  I don’t really “get” that because from my vantage point it is fun!  David and I like it so much that we went grocery shopping on our very first date some 27 years ago!  (Note:  we did NOT shop at a Trader Joe’s on that first date, we went to a Wegman’s in Rochester, NY J ).

Anyway, one fun thing about grocery shopping is that sometimes the store becomes a disco!  Here you see David cutting loose on the “dance floor” at Trader Joe’s (that’s one benefit of having most of the carts out of the cart coral – it becomes a dance floor!).  

I guess the moral of this "we love grocery shopping" story is this:  life is what you make of it.  ENJOY yourself.

  

Go David!  Bust a move!!!  (Clarendon, VA store)

Ok, we haven’t had a wine review since Friday, so let’s fix that!  :)

This is a Cabernet Sauvignon from Southeastern Austrialia.  Well, I mean, WE didn’t go to Southeastern Australia to buy it, but that is where it originated…  Boy I WISH we could go to Australia to pick up a bottle of wine!!  This was our first time tasting this one and I really like it!

This wine is good!  It is fruity.  It is complex without being headache inducingly complex (like the SAT test).  We are reviewing this without looking at the price tag, and David is guessing it is a $9 or $10 bottle of wine.  If it is less than that it is a good bargain!

Isn't this artwork GREAT??

Here's a more "regular" price sign

The label states that this wine is a “celebration of reciprocity”.  Well that sounds pretty high fallutin’. 

David says, “It is rich, full bodied, but not too oaky.  It still has a bit of lightness to it.”

This is a good bottle to keep in the wine rack for just an “after work glass of wine”. And hey, we allowed ourselves sto look at the price tag now - it's only FIVE BUCKS!  That's half of what David anticipated.  It's a good one folks, get a bottle.

Price - $4.99

Rating – 4

Day 268 - White Ribbon Semillon (white wine)

First, let’s try saying “Semillon”.  Apparently it is pronounced “Seh-meh-YON”.  Say it with me – “seh-meh-YON”.  You’ve got it!  (Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know, I totally had to ask.)

The label says “It has been called Australia’s unique wine gift to the world.  It is a crisp and refreshing wine, perfect with seafood, white meats, and salads.  It is from Australia’s oldest wine region.  It is the OTHER white wine…”

Ahhhh – clever!  I see what they did there!  They ripped off PORK’s big ad campaign about being the “other white meat”.  Clever buggers! 

Simple label.  Australians don't need no stinkin' artwork on their wine.

Ok.  So I was going to use “crisp” as my adjective to describe this wine, too, but now that I read the label to you, you are gonna think I just copied that from the bottle!  I did not.  I wrote down “crisp” before I read the label, I swear.  Of course, I say that about the majority of white wines that we drink…

It is nice.  It sets off whatever it is in your mouth that gets your saliva glands going…  Is that citrus?  It is not TOO DRY – we had it with Chicken Quesadillas (reviewed yesterday) and we also had it one night with a vegetarian meal and it was a good match for that, too.

Check it out - the wine peeps at TJ's also used "crisp" :)

David also used CRISP.  He said, “Nice, fine.  Good.  Crisp.  Pretty dry white wine.”

Oops – I said it WAS NOT all that dry…  Well, if you average our “dry” ratings together it is MEDIUM DRY!  J  And if I read the label better I would have seen that it bills itself as a “Classic Dry White”.  Hahaha!  OK OK IT IS DRY.  (But not tooooo dry, in my opinion.)

It has a screw top so it is easy to open.  We used to think screw tops were a bad thing, but the older we get the more we realize that screw tops are easy!  We would buy and drink this again.

G’day Australia!

Dublin, OH Trader Joe's FOUND GROCERY LIST board!

Bonus photo – I don’t have an “action” shot of us drinking this wine, so I will include a photo of this AWESOME bulletin board I found near the bathrooms of Trader Joe’s in Dublin, Ohio.  LOOK!!!  They pin up shopping lists that people leave in shopping carts!  Isn’t it great??  I would love to stand at the bulletin board and examine them.  What exactly were people coming to the store to buy?  Even more fun would be to compare those LISTS to the RECEIPTS to see what stuff they bought that they didn’t come in for!!  Anyway, I thought it was super cool.

Price – $6.99

Rating – 4.0

Day 98 - Rosemount Estate Ryecroft Cabernet Sauvignon (2013)

This is a wine we had never purchased before.  It was a “flyer item” – meaning that it is advertised in this month’s Trader Joe’s flyer (yes, an old school news print FLYER).  I do not normally take stock in the flyer, I actually feel sort of bad when it arrives in the mail and I put it directly into the recycling bin.  But an employee in the store told us this wine was pretty good, and so we decided to take the BIG GAMBLE and plop down a whopping $3.99 on a bottle!  J

See - only $3.99!  And see how it is marked as a FLYER ITEM?

 It is good!  Coming in at just under 4 bucks would normally make a person think, “Ummmm, yeah, ain’t no way that can taste okay…” but surprisingly, this one does!  As the sign in the store said, it has a “dark fruit” taste to it.  And as the sign touted, “Goes well with almost anything”.   And since you paid so little for it, you don’t feel bad “pairing it” with things like COOKIES or POPCORN! 

$3.99 - surely it will taste yucky....

But perhaps I should keep an open mind...

Because MAYBE it will be a great find!!

This is a good wine for opening when you know it’s just the two of you (or just you if your partner is on the road) and you are gonna sit in front of the television and binge on reality shows all night (or baseball if that’s your thing).

Rosemount Estate Ryecroft Cabernet Sauvignon in action

We will get it again.  Thanks for the recommendation, Trader Joe’s employee! 

Price - $3.99

Rating - 4