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 237 - Cold Pressed Watermelon Juice

So, we visited ANOTHER TRADER JOE’S in yet another state!  This time we were on a road trip – driving from Indianapolis back home to Arlington, VA.  I took a nap while David drove and when I woke up I said, “Wait, are we near a Trader Joe’s???”.  Lucky for me we were!

Tada!  The 16th Trader Joe's int he 10th state we have visited since January 1, 2015 - DUBLIN, Ohio!

Dublin, Ohio has a very nice TJ’s.  We talked to a super sweet and cool employee (whose name I have forgotten…) and he told us there are only 5 or 6 Trader Joe’s locations in all of Ohio.  And guess what?  There is no special OHIO REUSABLE SHOPPING BAG!  Trader Joe’s corporate, are you reading this?  We need an Ohio bag, stat!  You could put the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on it!  Or heck, you could put Cornhenge on it, which we stopped at right before shopping at TJ’s!  There are loads of Ohio things you could choose, just pick one and make a bag for those poor people.  I feel sorry that they do not have one.

The miracle of CORNHENGE, very near the Dublin, OH Trader Joe's!

Anyway, I picked up a Cold Pressed Watermelon Juice.  You must understand, the concept of this product sounds gross to me…  I have seen it in stores before and skipped it because I wasn’t sure I could give it a fair review.  To me, DRINKING watermelon sounds yucky.  But for some reason, on this sunny Ohio day I decided to give it a shot.

Isn't it a pretty color??

I am glad I tried it.  Granted, it doesn’t go into my “favorite juice” category, but it was not nearrrrrly as horrible as I had feared.  In fact, it was not HORRIBLE at all.  Here is what David and I thought of it:

David – It is good.  It’s light, refreshing.  It needs to be drunk cold but the little bit of lime juice is a good balancer.  (Editor’s note – it tasted like lime to David but is actually lemon juice.)  I guess I would give it a 4. 

As you can see from this photo, David didn't expect to like it either...

Susan – I expected to hate it.  Even when I opened the bottle and smelled it, it smelled disgusting…  To me, watermelon is something to be eaten, not DRANK.  The first drink was surprisingly refreshing!  We drank it right after leaving the store – it was very cold.  It’s light, not at all thick, gloppy or chunky (which is what I feared).  It is a very pretty color, but it looks gross on the shelf because all of  the watermelon pink part separates and goes to the bottom of the bottle. That is very visually off-putting to me.  You need to shake it really good before drinking.  I would give it a 3.5.  It is everything it is advertised to be – cold pressed watermelon juice.  It is just not the best taste for a juice for ME it is not disgusting like I feared it would be.

A little taste of summer in the Ohio sunshine

It is cool – the side of the bottle explains exactly what is in it.  That one little 15.2 oz bottle contained 2 lbs of watermelon and ¼ lemon.  I think that explains why the cold pressed drinks at TJ’s are so expensive!  2 lbs of watermelon squished into one bottle!  Yowsa!!

See how it looks BEFORE YOU SHAKE IT?  Bleck - the watery part on top doesn't look great

If you want to see Trader Joe’s info on this product, read here:  http://www.traderjoes.com/digin/post/cold-pressed-watermelon-juice

Overall, though this is a good product, I still would rather EAT a watermelon than DRINK one.  J

Price – $3.69

Rating – 3.75 (average of 2 ratings)