A Break in the Trip Reports - Just Tastings!

Taking a quick break in the reports of our trip, we made our regular trip to Vintage Cellar for the Saturday wine tasting and we also boldly attempted to match a wine to our dinner on Sunday night, beef stroganoff.  I will confess that the latter was quite the difficult match in our heads so we reverted to  Google for help.  Here's the very first link that popped up:

Sigh... we read through many posts and there was conflicting advice.  We eventually settled on a Cotes du Rhone as Brett thought red was going to work better than white.

Anyway, here are the reviews:

156. 2007 - Sbragia Family - Cabernet Sauvignon Andolsen Vineyard - this was amazing and on special 
157. 2010 - Bodega Catena Zapata - Cabernet Sauvignon - this was nice, but not as nice as the above
158. 2011 - Familia Mayol - Malbec - this was a pretty fair Malbec
159. 2011 - Cà La Bionda - Valpolicella Classico
160. 2011 Lagar de Costa Albariño Rías Baixas Doelas - this was an interesting albarino, definitely good with food or just to drink
161. 2011- Bodega Los Aljibes - Syrah Viña Aljibes Rosado - good grief this was fun;  a rose of syrah where the nose is all fruit (mostly strawberry), but the wine itself is crisp and refreshing and not nearly as sweet as the nose might lead you to expect;  great for summer!
162. 2012 - Château Les Arromans - semillion and sauvignon blanc blend
163. 2010 - Saint-Cosme  - Côtes du Rhône  - our beef stroganoff pairing.  This went pretty darn well but because of our last minute decision to have wine with dinner, it did not get opened nearly early enough to get some time to breathe.  It was much much better a couple hours after dinner was over.  

We'll be wrapping up our trip reports in the next few days as we go through the remaining pictures and videos.  We should easily crest 200 and probably be very close to 250 total new tastes at that point!  Stay tuned!