Day 214-Black Satin $13.99 at the Village Vintner in Carpentersville, Ill

This fruit wine is a blend of blackberry juice and some type of red wine that is not disclosed on the bottle. This winery's fruit wines are all blends that are so smooth and sweet, that before you know it the entire bottle is gone. This wine is very fruity and tastes like a Blackberry juice. This wine is great on it own, does not require pairing at all, but if you must I would put it with dessert. We had bought this wine before I started blogging, so we needed to buy it again in order to blog on it. I think I have now blogged on all the fruit wines at the Village Vintner. They had great sales over the month of December so we stocked up!

Day 213-2006 Evenus Zinfandel Port 375 ml at Trader Joe's for $9.99

I loved this wine and would probably buy it on a regular basis if it was not basically $20 per bottle since it is only a half bottle. This wine is totally smooth and reminds me of a late harvest zinfandel. The wine does have a very strong mocha flavor and a touch of sweetness. This wine has some nice legs to it and would pair excellent with dessert, however, I did not find that it needed to be paired with anything it was so good. I need to find a wine that tastes like this in a full bottle at about $15 dollars, because that would be my house red. I like a late harvest petite syrah, but honestly this wine gives it a run for its money. Hopefully, I will be able to find more wines similar to this in the future, a red wine with a touch of sweetness without the dry tannic afterbite that you find in a Cab or the peppery taste of a Syrah.

Day 212-St James Winery Country Red for $7.00 found at a Neiman's in McComb, Ill

We have tried St James Winery wines at numerous Binny's tasting events over the last 3 years. They make a lot of sweet and fruit wines. The wines are priced pretty reasonably so I am not sure why we have never bought any of the. The Country Red wine is a Concord blend that smells like grape juice and has some of the sweetness of grape juice. I found this to be a very simple wine, one that does not require pairing and that someone who is not very schooled on wine would like and would drink without too much difficulty. For the price, if you like a Concord wine this would be a good choice.

Day 211-Christmas Wine by the Von Steil Winery of Wisconsin $12.00 at Vino 100 in Mt Prospect

This Christamas wine is labeled as a semi-sweet wine made Door County, Michigan cherries. Again, this wine was bought as part of a Christmas themed blind tasting to replace the GPS. However, I hate cherry wine. I find it really tart and just not very pleasing to the taste. I liked this wine the least of the three that we tasted for the blind tasting on Christmas Eve. I have tried the Cherry Wine at both Lynfred Winery and at Coopershawk Winery and I don't like either of those wines, either. So it is me, if you like Cherry Wine, I would try this wine, I am not an unbiased opinion because I find Cherry wines to be too tart and prefer a lot of other fruit wines. My better half had to drink the majority of this wine, and stated that he could smell the cherry on the pouring of the wine, I however could not smell anything on this wine, however the taste is pure cherry.

Day 210-St Christopher Gluhwein for $6.00 at a neighborhood liquor store

My better half bought me a GPS for Christmas that needed to be returned on Christmas Eve since he got a GPS for Christmas and we basically share a car. So on Christmas Eve, he went on a hunt for holiday wines for a holiday wine tasting. This wine is a grape wine with natural flavors similar to a spice wine. I tried this wine cold and then warmed, and being it is not very good wine, I liked it better warmed where the cinnamon and clove flavors are more pronounced. It does not have the legs of a Glogg and I think that this wine does not have a port base as many Gloggs due. I would not drink this wine again, it is a good price, but I like the Gloggs I have tried a lot better, this is just cheap red wine with cinnamon and clove to cover the cheapness of the wine.

Day 209-Clos Du Bois 2007 Riesling California

I was given this wine for Christmas from my friend and co-worker who drinks strictly dry wine. For my son's birthday she bought me a port wine because as me being a non-bone dry wine drinker she has no idea what I drink because I don' t drink any of the wines she drinks. This is a traditional off-dry Riesling with some acidity and some sweetness. This wine was drank on Christmas while waiting for the turkey to cook, I actually did not make it to a pairing. The wine is fine on its own with pear and apple flavors, but I am sure would pair nicely with a spicy dish also. I have no idea on the price of this wine, other that I am sure it was under $20, however I would consider this wine as a one of the house Rieslings if the price was right.

Day 208-Blue Moon by the Village Vintner in Carpentersville, Il $12 or less a bottle with their current sale

The winery had a great sale over the weekend of 25% off 6-11 bottles of wine, so we stocked up. We bought this wine for the first time when we went to winery originally and have not bought it since, I don't know why. This wine is another great fruit wine blend of blueberry and Shiraz that makes for very easy drinking. It is a sweet fruit wine that tastes more like juice to me than wine, but at only 8% alcohol it is something I can drink without hurting too badly in the morning. If a person likes blueberries they will like this wine. This wine is another very good wine for the beginners, and would probably would be a great hit for dessert with cheesecake or for appetizer with all types of cheese. How could someone go wrong with blueberry juice with kick?