Day 16-Lil' Red Truck by Illinois River Winery for under $15

This winery is in Utica, Illinois just down the road from the August Hill Winery. We went to Utica with a day off in early December to wine taste at the three wineries in that area. Utica is about 2 hrs from Des Plaines, all expressway, but a bit of a drive. The woman at the Illinois River Winery was super friendly and gave discounts on the cute shirts they sold that I had to get two of since the price was right. For the wine drinkers of Illinois, I would emphatically reccomend a trip to Utica to visit the wineries and take in lunch, Utica is very close to Starved Rock and if you want to make a weekend of it there is a waterpark hotel in Starved Rock.
This is a concord wine, very similar to the Mt Pleasant Harvest Red. I find this wine more tart than the Mt Pleasant and it is slightly higher in alcohol at 11.8%. It has a strong grape aroma and taste that reminds you of of Welch's grape juice. If you like one concord, my thoughts is that you should try them all, because they range in sweetness and finish. The Illinois concords that I have run across tend to be sweeter wines, and have very grapey flavor. I love the smell of this wine and find it to be one of the most fragrant grapes in making wine. In terms of pairing this wine, I am going to say that this wine may seem overpowering for main courses, however I don't think you could find a better match for a cheese plate or chocolate sampler.

Day 15-New Age White Wine under $10 dollars at WineStyles in DesPlaines

I tried this wine for the first time at WineStyles in Des Plaines and it was so popular it came back once or twice for a repeat. This is labeled a while wine from Argentina and has a very cool bottle with a picture of a lady on the inside of the bottle. This wine has some fizz to it however is not in the category of a sparkling wine or a champagne. This is just your slightly sweet, slightly fruity, crisp, slightly bubbly table wine. I am drinking it tonight with spicy pasta with a white sauce and it goes well. I stayed home with the peanut today, peanut is code for Tyler Graham, and waiting until 5 pm for a glass was a difficult endeavor. Peanut has run a fever for the last 2 days. My friends also enjoyed this wine when they joined us at Winestyles for an evening and bought a bottle themsleves. This was wine became so popular at Winestyles that it sold out continually. New Age White wine with a twist of lime was the hot drink of the summer of 2008 and there is no question why. It is sweet and refreshing and quenches your thirst versus some wines that make you more thirsty. A great barbecue wine, birthday party wine, and wine for novices. You can't be the price and it is wonderful wine.

Day 14- Gancia Asti for under $10.00 at Binny's Beverage Depot

I want to start out today's blog with a sad note. The WineStyles of Des Plaines owned by Mark and worked by Jim and Lindsey is closing at the end of next week. I have been going to WineStyles since they opened only taking a break for the 9 months I was pregnant. Going there on Thursdays for the wine tasting was our date of the week. The atmosphere was always very festive and friendly with choice cheeses and crackers and wonderful wines. Winestyles was my favorite tasting locale, it was the Cheers of wine, and I won't forget the times I had there and the wonderful people I met there. I wish Mark the best in his future endeavors and I hope he will keep me on the email list if he decides to open another wine shop. Jim, our fellow sweet wine drinker, I hope you will keep in touch and I see you around at other tastings in the area. Lindsey, good luck in your wedding and upcoming marriage.
In order to understand about this wine you need to understand Asti. Asti is a region of Piedmont, Italy known for their sweet sparkiling wines made from Moscato grapes. Basically speaking all wines labeled Moscato di Asti or Asti are sweet sparkling wines. Sorocco, the first Moscato di Asti we ever bought was the springboard for me and better half in the wines from the Asti region and sweet wines. This wine, like all Moscato di Asti's taste better well chilled. This wine is a sparkling wine, but not very sparkling or bubbly, it is sweet and would do well as your every day moscato di asti since the price is right and it is not overly sweet like some moscato di asti. My sister complains that moscato di asti's taste like juice and there is that point that these wines taste more sweet than alcoholic. This wine is only 7.5% alcohol which is only slightly higher than beer and/or a wine cooler. This is a good wine for celebrations, New Years Eve if you need to buy in bulk, however, tonight I would say this wine does not match my mood at all. I am sad that my Thursday nights will now be empty and that I will not be seeing some very friendly people who loved wine like I do on a weekly basis.

Day 13- Trapolino of the August Hill Winery at $14.95

Obviously, I drink too much wine because I have 2 Day 11's and no Day 12. Please forgive me the Strawberry is Day 12 and hopefully I will be able to keep my days straight. I am not trying to say one wine blends into another, but keeping to the schedule of a sweet wine day is allowing me to separate my days individually so I can revisit the night before. Back to the Trapolino, described by the vintners as being a sweet red table wine. I agree this wine makes a great table wine, however I did not find this wine to be particularly sweet and not particularly dry. The wine seemed to be a blend, and was very tasty. The wine has a lot of body with a strong fruit aroma of cherry, blackberry some oakiness, however my significant other will agree I am not very good on determining if something is aged in oak for any time because I think I miss label some like flavors for oakiness when it is something else. What that is, who knows? This wine was a good sipping wine and I drank a large glass while watching Srgt. Bilko on the on demand free movies. The wine is very smooth and has a great finish. This wine is a great wine to bring to a dinner and is sure to be a crowd pleaser. August Hill just doesn't make bad wines, you make not like the type of wine or the style, but the wine is always true to the grape and very elegant.

Day 11-Strawberry of the Montelle Winery in Augusta, MO priced at around $10

I am a social worker for a managed care company where I am connected to a computer all day, therefore when I am not answering calls I am able to surf the web a significant amount. I bought about 7 bottles of wine direct from this winery in Missouri because the offered a significant amount of money off if you bought 6 or more bottles and their wines had won awards, so I said why not. My personality is to try new things all the time, which is why I am very excited about trying 365 different sweet wines. So I spend a lot of time on the internet looking for new and interesting fruit and sweet wines.
Back to the Strawberry that Montelle reports is made from 100% strawberries and is not blended with other grapes. I have tried a strawberry that was blended with a white zinfadel from the Village Vintner that was very good, so I am not bashing on blending wines with fruit wines. Lynfred fruit wines and Cooperhawk wines are renowned for their 100% fruit and a certain # of pounds of fruit go into each bottle and most are very good also. The Strawberry from Montelle is also very good. It is the color of a White Zinfandel and smells of strawberry with out being overpoweringly sweet. The winery reccomends possibly spritzing this wine or serving it over ice and I don't think any of that is neccessary. It is a very light and crisp wine with that first taste of sweet strawberries with a tart finish. I was pleasantly surprised that this wine did not taste like liquid strawberry jam. I have tasted some wines that blended strawberry with two other fruits and needed to be spritzed because it was so heavy and thick. Some fruit wines you can pour over cheesecake, however this wine is not like this at all, basically this tastes like a strawberry wine not like a strawberry spread. This wine is definitely a summer wine with its clean, fresh taste and its light finish. If you like strawberries, but you don't like wine you may not like this wine, because this wine is not a liquid strawberry it is more of a strawberry flavored wine. This wine reminds me of strawberry picking in the summer, with my significant other getting strawberries all over his jeans and complaining that we would never fill our baskets and then after filling our baskets complaining we would never eat all those strawberries, which we did not.

Day 11 La Sera Red Malvasia at $16.99 at Vintages in Arlington Heights and Grand Cru

Red Malvasia is an Italian sweet red sparkling wine. This wine like the Rosa Regale is a sweet Italian red bubbly. This bubbly is a more intense fruity and sweet and less elegant than the Rosa. Don't get me wrong, I like this wine a lot, it is simply different than Rosa Regale. I find this wine to be a replacement for dessert. However, this wine is good by itself as simply a drinking wine, chilled, which is typical for most sweet wines. When I first opened the bottle I thought it had strange finish, but after airing the wine for a short period of time I did not notice the finish. I bought this wine for the first time at an Italian wine tasting with my sister, who felt it was of course, too sweet. I am partial to sweet red sparklings and think is one of the wines I will drink year after year as long as they continue to make a quality red sweet sparkling.
This is a great festive wine that can be used at any occasion for a ice breaker or for dessert and the alcohol content of 5.5% will keep you sober enough to conitinue to enjoy the party well after you have polished off the bottle.

Day 10 cont..

Sorry about that but sometimes I am pulled away by Tyler Graham, my 14 month old son, and I have trouble finishing a thought. What I was trying to say was that if you have tried the Winter Whites and Winter Reds of Lynfred Winery and Cooperhawk and did not like them, still give Glogg a try because I found the Winter Whites and Winter Reds medicinally and not much like the Glogg at all except they were both served warm and had some spices in common.