winedown Archives : Me, Annie Bee. https://meanniebee.com/tag/winedown/ A not so serious blog about family, life & wine. Sat, 05 Mar 2022 17:19:40 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://meanniebee.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cropped-MABFav-32x32.png winedown Archives : Me, Annie Bee. https://meanniebee.com/tag/winedown/ 32 32 125685776 Weekly Winedown #20 Kumala Zenith Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz https://meanniebee.com/2017/09/29/weekly-winedown-20-kumala-zenith-merlot-cabernet-sauvignon/ https://meanniebee.com/2017/09/29/weekly-winedown-20-kumala-zenith-merlot-cabernet-sauvignon/#comments Fri, 29 Sep 2017 19:08:45 +0000 http://meanniebee.com/?p=5208 Welcome to the Weekly Winedown. Each week I selflessly drink wine for you and offer a review. Please don’t expect anything professional, I consume a lot of wine but I’m no pro. The only real ‘rule’ I’m putting in place is that the wine is to be under £8 a bottle. #keepitclassy.Last week I failed to present. I was at BlogOn, a bloggers conference in Manchester, and I fully intended to do a ‘live’ winedown from there. Unfortunately I met up with some pretty fabulous people at the Paladone party and we were having too much fun actually drinking wine to talk about it. It’s not unfortunate that I met up with the wonders that are Erica, Fran, Kayleigh, Faith and James. That was an actual joy and delight, they’re a lovely bunch. Some are even almost as funny as me. Almost. The party also wasn’t unfortunate, free bar thank you Paladone. The unfortunate bit was the lack of winedown. It was unfortunate for you. I let the team down. I’m overthinking this aren’t I? On with the show. Hallo to South Africa, more specifically Kumala Zenith Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz, easy for you to say! Half price at £4.99 this week so under budget. Did we ever establish if that was actually cheating or not? Meh. The Label Black, grey and white with a splash of gold. This label thinks it’s all that. Trying to be minimal and cool all at once. It’s a bit like one of those super trendy shops that are almost entirely black except for a spotlight here or there. Shops I avoid for I am too old and too, ahem, ‘curvy’. I’m hoping that I’m neither too old nor ‘curvy’ for what lies within this bottle.   The blurb “A juicy, smooth full-bodied red wine, with red berry fruit, ripe plums and a hint of spice on the rich lingering finish” To the point! I like that it clarifies it’s a red wine, just in case the bottle and the name hadn’t made it clear enough. Or that fact that you picked it up in the ‘red wine’ section of the supermarket…. Full bodied, red berries and spice. All my favourites in one place. Now we’re into autumn a good red really comes into itself. There’s nothing nicer than closing the curtains, lighting a candle and snuggling under a blanket on the couch with a nice bottle of red. The colour is perfect, a rich ruby red – usually a sign of wonderful things to come. The aroma is subtle but warming, red currants and plum. It’s a rich palate, like Christmas in a bottle. The spicy undertones are warm like cinnamon and nutmeg, the fruit taste is rich and plummy. It has a soft but enduring finish. I am sure that this wine used to average about £5 a bottle, at that price I would certainly buy it more often. In a week that started on the biggest high in Manchester (metaphorical)  and ended in relief thanks to an amazing friend (you can read about THAT incident here).  I was hoping this wine would hit the mark and it absolutely did. Name – Kumala Zenith Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz Price – £4.99 Colour – Rich, ruby red. Smell – Subtle red currants. Taste – Warm spice and rich fruit, like Christmas. Goes well with – Long Autumn evenings in front of the fire radiator. Overall score – 3.75/5  

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]]> https://meanniebee.com/2017/09/29/weekly-winedown-20-kumala-zenith-merlot-cabernet-sauvignon/feed/ 2 5208 Weekly Winedown #14 Araldica Barbera D’Asti Superiore https://meanniebee.com/2017/08/04/weekly-winedown-14-araldica-barbera-dasti-superiore/ https://meanniebee.com/2017/08/04/weekly-winedown-14-araldica-barbera-dasti-superiore/#respond Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:59:44 +0000 http://meanniebee.com/?p=4904 Welcome to the Weekly Winedown. Each week I selflessly drink wine for you and offer a review. Please don’t expect anything professional, I consume a lot of wine but I’m no pro. The only real ‘rule’ I’m putting in place is that the wine is to be under £8 a bottle. #keepitclassy. I’m back!! Is that a collective whoop of glee I hear? I choose to tell myself it is! We find ourselves in week two of the school holidays. Week one was spent in France, basking in temperatures of around 30 degrees, make up free with massive hair and drinking the most wonderful local red wines. Days were spent at the beach or in the pool, taking in spectacular views and wishing we lived there. Week two has been spent here in Leeds. Huddling in the house with the heating on, avoiding external temperatures of 15 degrees, face full of slap and hair ruined by the drizzle/rain/hail/wind (you choose) drinking lovely red wine but tasting the miles that have been put into them. Days have been spent at washed out activities, arguing, falling out and wishing we lived there. France, not here. Thank crunchie Friday is here at last because now I can drink wine with purpose. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! After drinking a LOT of good French wine I decided to opt for something different this week. I had a look at a wine from Israel. Luckily for the first time ever I checked the details and saw it was a dessert wine thereby avoiding catastrophe. We ALL know red wine should never be sweet or thin. I looked again and opted for an Italian red. Tonight I will mostly be enjoying (hopefully) Araldica Barbera D’Asti Superiore on offer at £6.74 at Ocado this week. I have decided to christen my wine for this evening ‘Babs’. Bargain. The word ‘Asti’ always makes me think of sparkling white wine. In this case I am assuming that D’Asti means ‘from Asti’ rather than fizzy. I HOPE that’s what it means. Today my brain cannot cope with fizzy red wine. And so, to the label! It’s one of those simple yet elegant designs, off white with red and black type and an embossed logo. Clean and straight to the point. It’s obviously tried really hard to look like it’s not tried hard. It works, I’m sucked in, it looks well expensive and feels like posh business cards. “Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh, my God. It even has a watermark.”   10 points if you got that cultural gem. Back to it….   The Blurb “…This is a soft, warm, mature red wine. It has been aged for at least a year in large old oak casks. Cherry and plum fruit character is overlaid with delicate smoky wood scents, a welcoming red that perfectly accompanies grilled meats, roasted vegetables or pasta dishes with tomato based sauces.” Since doing these Winedowns I have discovered that words like ‘warm’, ‘oak’ and ‘spicy’ usually point to a wine I enjoy. Something full bodied. I am hoping this is the case today though ‘Asti’ keeps playing on my mind. I’m getting a fear of sweet and fizzy. It’s OK though, it’s got ‘Superiore’ in its name that means the same in English right? Here goes….. The bouquet is plummy, it makes the back of my tongue go all fizzy, like it’s going to be a bit bitter. It’s not sparkly, hooray! The taste is interesting, there is a definite smoky after taste, one that you’d expect with a full bodied wine but this isn’t full bodied. It’s sweet, not too sweet but it is thin in texture. We all know I like a thick wine! It tastes more like a really good quality rose than a red wine. It’s a confusing wine but I like it. A proper wineventure (copyrighting this). With Seth’s insistence on waking between 4.20 & 5.20 am for the last two weeks and Aoife deciding that sleeping through the night is for losers, this has been a week of exhaustion. I KNOW some parents with babies are suffering worse than I. I know they are up four or five times in the night but you know what? We’ve done our share of that. We signed up for it and we got through it. Ours are 3 and 6, we should be the parents enjoying a full night’s sleep and telling those with babies that one day it will pass and they will be sleeping through! I should be smug mum not tired mum! The tiredness and the crappy weather has ensured that the end of my tether has certainly been close at hand this week. Next week can only get better right?   Name – Araldica Barbera D’Asti Superiore Price – £6.74 Colour – Rich Red Smell – Plummy Taste – Spicy but thin Goes well with – The anger I feel toward my technology. Overall score – 3.5/5 Salut 

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]]> https://meanniebee.com/2017/08/04/weekly-winedown-14-araldica-barbera-dasti-superiore/feed/ 0 4904 Weekly Winedown #3 Otra Vida Malbec. https://meanniebee.com/2017/05/05/weekly-winedown-3-otra-vida-malbec/ https://meanniebee.com/2017/05/05/weekly-winedown-3-otra-vida-malbec/#comments Fri, 05 May 2017 20:17:33 +0000 http://meanniebee.com/?p=4351 Welcome to the Weekly Winedown. Each week I selflessly drink wine for you offer a review. Please don’t expect anything professional, I consume a lot of wine but I’m no pro. The only real ‘rule’ I’m putting in place is that the wine is to be under £8 a bottle. #keepitclassy.Apparently my review last week  wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped. Apparently the whole chewy/swimming pool thing wasn’t taken in the fond way I intended and it wasn’t enough to make people want to try it “To say I’m not a fan of red wine, after reading your review this week I definitely won’t be trying it” Rory – last week I meant both in a very positive way, I don’t like ‘thin’ wine, I feel robbed and you’ve got to admit that warm smell of swimming pool is quite a nice, comfortable kind of smell…..Just me? OK! Moving swiftly on! This week I struggled to decide which wine to go for, as I’ve said before I’m always drawn to French and it’s hard to break habits. I got Rory to choose a country to make my choice easier. He chose Argentina so I chose Otra Vida Malbec, £5.65 from Ocado, because I liked the label. I’ve been getting my wine from Ocado simply because it’s easier to get when my shopping is delivered, I know that some towns can’t get deliveries from there but I really can’t go back to using Asda. They became so bad! “We’ve not got the bread you wanted so we substituted it with this sock. We’re also out of squash so we substituted that with the bread you initially ordered and we told you we didn’t have it”* Really Asda, sort your schizz out and I’ll consider coming back to you! Anyway. Back to it . I bought the Otra Vida because I liked the label and the price. The official blurb on the wine reads thusly “Otra Vida – Another life in Argentina, “La Otra Vida” is a relaxing and pleasurable time, away from the rigours of daily life and work. Whichever way you like to enjoy life, enjoy it with Otra Vida. Wine of Mendoza, Argentina, Smooth, medium-bodied Malbec that perfectly combines plum and red berry flavours, Suitable for vegetarians” Seriously. That’s it. That’s all it says. I’ll be honest, I’m not holding out much hope for this one. It’s focusing a lot on ‘taking time out’ and not a lot on flavour and stuff. It’s either terribly confident in itself or just hopes you drink enough  that you get so swept away from the rigours of life you could be drinking turps. Here goes…..The colour isn’t what I’d normally hope for, it’s kind of light red. Not pink but not rich red like heavy velvet curtains, more like cheap halloween  fake blood red. The smell is bitter and sharp. A slight hint of wet dog. It made my tongue feel funny just smelling it. And now for the taste…..It isn’t as bad as all indicators suggested it would be. It’s fruity,  like dark berries, the ones they put next to cheesecake but you never eat because they’re a bit tart. It’s a little bitter but also a bit sweeter than I’d usually choose (I know this makes no sense but it does) I normally really enjoy a Malbec because it’s quite full bodied, this one isn’t. It’s a wine for when you’ve got friends round, it’ll go with any food simply because it’s wet and you’re thirsty.I feel like I’m being unnecessarily harsh but it is being pretty harsh itself. I think I was spoilt with last weeks surprise wine! Today the wine is an apres Ikea whilst  numbing feelings of complete dismay, anger and frustration because Seth has decided, once again, that walking is for losers. Maybe this is why I was hoping for more from it, because I’ve been looking forward to it all day? Tomorrow is a whole new day and I’m sure it will be better. Besides, the more of this I drink this wine the more I feel I’m drifting “away from the rigours of daily life”. Name – Otra Vida Malbec Price – £5.65 Colour – Light red. Smell – Sharp and earthy. Taste – Bitter berries with a sweet aftertaste. Goes well with – Despair and apres shopping. Overall score –  2.5/5  An all rounder, largely unoffensive. Does exactly what it says on the tin (label) So that’s this weeks Weekly Winedown, just like wine they get better the more you ingest….. Where last week I learnt you shouldn’t judge a wine by it’s label, this week I also learnt I shouldn’t judge a wine by it’s label.What’s in your wine cellar/flask this week? I need suggestions.  *This might not be an entirely accurate recollection of events. The Tale of Mummyhood  

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