I. Did. It.
This silly little blog, this fun,
crazy “hobby”, has hit half a million views!!!!!
I was traveling last week for
work. As I left town, I was a couple
hundred hits shy of the exciting 500,000 mark.
I knew it would happen while I was on the road, and I wanted to write
about it as it occurred, but see above, I was WORKING, and at a super hard
assignment as well. So, even though I
wanted to sit down, write, and celebrate, I had to focus, people! Priorities, ya know?
But I am home now – so let’s par-tay!!
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| HALF A MILLION HITS! |
I know that some bloggers have a
bazillion times more views than I do, but I bet you none of them are as happy
about it as I am with this half a million!
OK, now that the celebrating is out of
the way, we should probably review something, eh? How about a wine, I haven’t reviewed a wine
in a while.
Panilonco Carmenere (2016 Reserve)
This is a red wine from Chile. We bought it because it is a Carmenere, and David likes to
put on what he thinks is a Chilean accent and say that name loudly (much like
he likes to stroll around the kitchen spouting, “montepulciano d'abruzzo” – you
don’t know how many glasses of montepulciano d'abruzzo we have drunk in
restaurants just so he can say the name…).
Anyway, here is what he thought of this Panilonco Carmenere:
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| I should add a sound file here so you can hear the name of this wine roll off of David's tongue... |
“This wine is bold and full flavored
like a Cabernet Sauvignon, but kind of rough around the edges. It doesn’t taste like turpentine, but it is
not a wine that fancy French aristocrats drink while sitting around a café table. This is a wine that is drunk by Chilean
cowboys, and that’s alright! I give it a
4.25.”
We have actually had this wine
before, but I don’t think we reviewed it.
So, first things first – the LABEL
is not pretty. As we all know, first
impressions count, and this wine is not one that immediately attracts the eye
on the shelf. Lucky for us, the name attracted David, so into our cart
it went.
As for me, I think this is a nice
red! I really, really like it. it is not pretentious. It is not fruity. It is a little bit peppery, maybe with a hint
of black cherry. Simply put, this is
just a RED WINE. We drank it with TJ’s Southwestern Chopped Salad
(recently reviewed here), TJ’s pasta, TJ’s Just Sauce Turkey Bolognese (a staple in
our freezer and the very first TJ’s product I ever reviewed back on January 1,
2015 here), and the TJ’s olives that I adore (reviewed here). This wine was a really good fit with the
meal. I want to get more bottles of this
one, especially now that we are switching over to red wines for the winter
season.
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| A nice, sturdy, reliable red. |
This win, at $5.99, is also very well priced. And, like David said, it is not
pretentious. We went through a bunch of
quasi-official wine snob reviewer sounding descriptions for what we tasted:
sawdust, black pepper, cigar… Obviously, we are not wine experts, so
we checked the back label to see what the winery thought we should be
tasting: “Deep colored, concentrated and
attractive nose, with notes of blackberries and mint. The spicy flavors combines (TYPO – oops, note
to label maker, that should be “combine”) with the silky tannins and the toasted
vanilla from the barrel. Delicious on
its own, this wine is the perfect partner for Italian cuisine and spicy
courses.”
I think this is really a good red
table wine. If you come over for dinner
this winter at the Big Yellow House this may well be on offer. I agree with David on the score – 4.25.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping me hit this
milestone! See ya at the 1,000,000
mark! Until then, keep drinking wine
(and shopping at Trader Joe’s)!
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| Bonus jumping photo - the one where David jumped so high he is almost out of frame :) |
Price: $5.99
Rating: 4.25
