Wine Tasting at Home

I love Friday nights at home. Our newest tradition is to cook something at home, open a bottle of wine, and sit outside on our deck listening to music and catching up until we are ready for bed. It is so refreshing and restful and one of my absolute favorite times of the week.

Last night we decided to relive our wine country travels by doing a little wine tasting outside. Thanks to the sampler kits we bought at Amista Vineyards, all we had to do was grab a few glasses, the tasting notes, and to head for the setting sun.

Amista sells these great little at home wine tasting kits, and as we learned, the hard way, you re able to take TWO of them on board the plane with you. Three tasting kits gets you extra special attention from airport security. 🙂 Apparently the contents of three will not fit in the plastic quart bag.

(Our deck desperately needs to be redone. If anyone in Boston has a good deck sander/painter recommendation, let me know!)

This particular tasting kit included:

The kit also includes tasting notes and food pairings, multiple menus and courses for each wine. It is an excellent, informative guide and something I plan on using if I ever have time to plan a wine dinner at home.

We tasted through the lineup, each bottle being just enough for a taste for both of us. With the exception of the Chardonnay, which I think wasn’t sealed properly, the wines were all the exceptional quality I remember from the Amista tasting room. When I removed the seal of the Chardonnay bottle, it was sticky, smelled like old wine, and had a caramel-colored residue in the cap. It happens.

My favorite was of course the 2004 Syrah. I have tasted Syrah from many places, and those from the Dry Creek Valley and in particular, Amista and Michel-Schlumberger tend to be the best for my palate.

Dinner was supposed to be some fish and roasted veggies, but after another tiring week, we opted for a bacon and jalapeno pizza from the shop around the corner. It was a perfect red wine pizza. 🙂

And since I haven’t mentioned any new product favorites lately, I just had to include a photo of my Trader Joe’s lemon curd. Disclaimer, I do not work for Trader Joe’s though I would love to, I just find so many delicious deals there! This lemon curd is like a lemony pudding, and while I just had a couple spoons out of the jar last night, I can’t wait to eat it with shortbread.

And I am still obsessed with Trader Joe’s Super Red Drink Powder. Just wanted to throw that in there.

Do you have any special traditions or rituals that you look forward to each week or month?

Have a great Saturday!