Tuesday, August 12, 2008

wine tales

Hopefully this blog post won't be as excruciating as Sideways.

So when I heard that Chris was getting married at Blue Sky Vineyards, it was sort of a joke. Not the wedding, but the winery. I mean, Southern Illinois wine? Come on.

I've had a fine Port at Blue Water Grill. I've had a terrible red wine in Paris.

But Carbondale wine? Do they stomp the grapes wearing Crocs while watching Nascar?

So we went to the wedding and we had a glass of Molti Bianchi. It was...delicious. Suprisingly amazing. In fact, a few weeks later we ordered 3 bottles online. More on that later.

On our anniversary, we went to Lynfred Winery in Roselle, IL (near Schaumburg). We shared a wine tasting: 7 glasses for 7 dollars. We each had about 2 that stood out from the rest. The Chardonnay was particularly bland, but I enjoyed a red and white that day.

Then they said that we had to try their Wine-A-Rita. They gave us a free sample and it was awesome. A perfect summer treat. We liked it so much that we bought the mix and a bottle of white Illinois wine, Chardonelle. Very good.

A few days later, our bottles from Blue Sky arrived. We knew we liked sweet wines, so we ordered 3 sweets: two whites, one red.

Molti Bianchi $11
Sweet Riesling $15
Concord $10

The one that we had at the wedding, was our least favorite. The Riesling was delicious, and the Concord was unbelievably amazing.

Then, just last night, I went to the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant on someone else's dime. I ordered a 16 oz Ribeye with a blue cheese crust. It's hard to not enjoy a steak, but I must admit that it was cooked longer than I asked for (medium-rare) and it was not up there with the better steaks I've had. But I'm not complaining.

Then my aunt-in-law ordered a bottle of red wine. A 2005 Groth Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon. I tasted it. It was pretty good but I wouldn't order it again. I finished my glass and that was that. Then I found out the bottle cost over $100.

I couldn't believe it. That glass of wine that I thought was just okay was at least $20.

So to sum up, the best wine I've ever had, was not from Paris, and wasn't a $100 bottle from a fancy restaurant. It was a $10 bottle from Southern Illinois.

1 comment:

  1. yeah baby!

    there are actually a whole lot of wineries outside of carbondale, a few in the area of blue sky and more in the area of my dad's cabin. i've spent a couple of great afternoons going on the "wine trail". that means you go to one winery, taste a few samples, maybe buy a bottle, go to another winery, and so on. it's a fantastic way to pass a sunday afternoon.

    SoIl isn't like the rest of the state. we've got hills and vinyards.

    and yeah, price is hardly indicative of how much i'm going to enjoy a glass of wine.

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