Thanksgiving the Argentine Malbec Way

If you're hosting Thanksgiving this year and looking for an affordable wine to serve, or visiting the in-laws and want to impress on a budget, try these affordable wine buys:

2007 Guggenheim Malbec or Cabernet Sauvignon, $9! No relation to the museum (I'm sure they got full licensing rights to use the name...yah!) An excellent value wine here, very easy drinking and should go well with ham, turkey or tofu-loaf!

2006 Colome Malbec, $20... twice as much, sure... but ten times better. That's a ratio you can feel good about. I don't use this word often when referring to wine, but the Colome is downright sexy. It greets you with truffle and mocha on the nose and ends with dense currant fruit, rounded tannins and a very long finish. If you want to impress this wine will do the trick. Let it breath for about an hour before drinking for optimal enjoyment.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Cheers!

Buckingham Palace Wine Cellars

Wine Fun Fact of the Day: Buckingham Palace has one of the largest wine cellars in the world with over 25,000 bottles. The oldest bottle in the collection was dated 1815 (likely vinegar now!).

Now, if I could just get an invite for dinner... Maybe I could sneak in as an Au pair.

Thanks to NPR for the hour special on Buckingham, fascinating.

Next post, an affordable Malbec for $9!

Cheers!

A Wine Lovers Holiday Wish List!

It's a tad early to be making Christmas requests, BUT how COOL would this be?

A California Company called Crushpad enables anyone to launch their own wine brand. Crushpad handles the fermentation, refining, bottling, labeling and will even connect you with buyers for your wine. It's a tad pricey at $5,900 to $10,900 per barrel, which works out to around $19 a bottle on the low end, a D- on the affordability scale, but nonetheless a fun concept to think about for an entrepreneur or budding wine mogul! According to the website a few of their private label wines were ranked in the 90's by Wine Spectator, not too shabby!

The grapes are sourced from:

• Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, Red Mountain
• Merlot from Red Mountain
• Syrah from Santa Barbara, Mendocino
• Zinfandel from Howell Mountain, Dry Creek Valley
• Grenache from Mendocino
• Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley, Sonoma Coast, Santa Lucia Highlands
• Chardonnay from Sonoma Coast, Russian River

If anyone tries the service, please send me a bottle, I'd love to review it on the blog!

Cheers!