Welcome to Mrs. Reed Loves Wine

Greetings!

Since this is our first of hopefully, many discussions I would like to introduce you to my world. If you are not familiar with my name; Mrs. Reed, please allow me to share some very relevant information.

My purpose in creating this blog is to share with readers my love and enjoyment of wine and my observations of life. To protect the innocent, I have chosen to present the people in my life and myself as fictious and historical characters.

Cast of Main Characters:

I am Mrs. Reed, former sitcom Mother (use your imagination).

Dr. Alex: my husband (not really a doctor)

Oldest Son: Wally

Youngest Son: Beaver

Daughter-in-Law and Wally's wife: Mary Alice

Our family dog: White Fang

There are many more new, fun and interesting characters that you will be meeting in future posts.

Now, for our first post. . .

I would like to tell you about two wines I consumed yesterday at a 4th of July barbeque. Dr. Alex and I met our friends, Fred and Ethel, at our local country club for the annual 4th of July celebration. (Trust me we are not talking fancy at this place). The food was the usual barbeque fare. Over cooked hot dogs, under cooked burgers and of course The Sahara Desert, dried out chicken. You need a nice beverage to get this kind of grub down the old esophagus.

We began our meal with The Ojai Vineyard 2008 Rose`. This lovely Rose is a Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre blend with some Sauvignon Blanc for added crispness. Beautiful salmon color coming in at about 14% alcohol. This is a light weight wine that really delivers with a great nose and palate. The nose offers lots of subtle minerality with some gentle citrus. Light strawberries mixed with perfectly balanced acidity engulf your mouth. This was a great way to start the evening. By the way this terrific wine sells for about $15.00. Definitely a 4 aprons wine. (The guide is 1-6 aprons, of course 6 aprons is a really a coup. More on the aprons at the end).

Next, we all got off our derrieres got in line to have our plates filled with this disgusting food. After all that exercise it was time to open another bottle of thirst quenching vinified grape juice. I brought a bottle of Perrin & Fils Chateauneuf du Pape 2005, Les Sinards. I was very excited to finally try this bottle of wine. The 2005 vintage in France was called the year of the century. Which is pretty funny since the century is only 9 years old. But hype is hype so who am I to disagree with experts? The Perrin Family is very famous in France for producing the highly respected Chateauneuf du Pape from their Chateau de Beaucastel vineyards. This particular wine was from younger vines grown at the Beaucastel vineyard as well as a nearby vineyard. A definite 4 apron wine.

So instead of paying around $75.00 for Beaucastel I purchased this wine for about $40.00. Ethel, Fred. Dr. Alex and I were all very pleased with this wine. It went great with the barbque burn taste and not one drop was left in the bottle. By the way this wine actually made our wretched food tolerable. I find a nice bottle of wine can actually make bad food much more agreeable. Anyway, this wine is a blend of 70% Grenache, 15% Syrah and 15% Mourvedre. The palate provides lots of dark fruit consisting of dark cherries, raspberries with some black pepper and baking spices. I felt on the nose I initially was getting baking spice and some earth with dark berries. This wine had a wonderful balance with plenty acidity.

I chose not to go overboard with endless wine descriptors. When I am drinking wine I want to enjoy it and not spend the whole time having some ridiculous wine scavenger hunt descriptor search. I think that really has gotten out of hand.

One weekend Dr. Alex and I had dinner with some wine friends up in Napa. They wanted to spend the whole night swishing, swirling and discussing wine descriptors on some amazing wines from Rochioli and Papapietro Perry. Just to annoy them I kept interjecting that I was smelling bananas. “Yep, bananas” I continued to throw out to them hoping they would be so disgusted with me they would finally stop. Guess what? It worked, because they must have decided I was so beneath their one of a kind sniffers and palates that they finally suspended their overdone description and enjoyed the wine. Ok, time for me to take White Fang for a walk and give Dr. Alex a little attention.

Wally and Beaver are now grown men and live in other parts of the country. Wally is married to the lovely and beautiful Mary Alice. Beaver lives in a large city that is known for an enormous statue of a woman inviting people to our country's shores.

I will continue to blog and give you more stories and wine recommendations so I hope you come back for more. Please feel free to comment on anything I write.

Mrs. Reed recommends:

The Ojai Vineyard 2008 Rose-4 aprons.

Perrin & Fils Chateauneuf du Pape Les Sinards 2005-4 aprons.

Apron scale is anywhere from 0-6. Wooden spoons will sometimes be added.

It has been a sincere pleasure to share a slice of my world with you.

Wishing you a perfectly pressed apron day.

XXOO

Mrs. Reed