$3.99 Chardonnary? Go Ahead...I Double Dog Dare You...

If anything is indicative of your twenties, its the use of your smart phone in practically everything you do. If there is anything else that is completely indicative of your twenties, its the fact that you live on a budget.

So guess what happens when you suddenly lose your $800 iPhone 4S at a bar & don't have insurance on it?

You drink $5 dollar wines for the next month... or more...

May I introduce to you my under $5 drink of the night: Double Dog Dare Chardonnay.

This wine actually surprised me with a candid drinkability. What poured from the simple yet fun bottle was not what I had (quite biasedly) expected, that in being a wood chip oaky California Chard, but rather a clear pale straw colored wine showcasing fruit & floral notes. (Note: oak influence in white wines will leave you with a golden or deep lemon color).

On a side note: People commonly ask me "What differentiates a cheap wine vs. an expensive wine?" Answer: if the wine maker is pricing their product correctly, it is the complexity of the wine - or how many different notes, aromas, and tastes you can pull out of your glass. So you can imagine my surprise when I looked down at my notes after tasting this $5 wine and saw a small paragraph forming!

This wine, although seemingly simple with up-front notes of yellow apple & unripe nectarine, actually had several nuanced auxiliary aromas like honey suckle, white marble, & unripe pineapple (aka the green outside parts). It also featured a little bit of honey, which makes me think the winemaker has left an undetectable bit of sugar in the wine to help balance the body (This happens in more wines then you think).

Oh... and those are just my notes on the bouquet.

On the palate this wine was dry (mostly) with appropriate acid. Lemon juice along with the white middle fruit of a Red Delicious apple featured heavily here with some white grapefruit sticking around in the finish.

Sounds too good to be true right?

Well.... I would be lying if I didn't tell you it kinda is. What puts this wine back in the under $10 dollar range was a slightly more pronounced bitter flavor on the finish (from that unripe pineapple & grapefruit) as well as what could be deemed a slightly out of balance amount of alcohol at 12.5%given the fruit flavors noted above - making this wine tricky to pair with food. Also, while this wine had a finish (rare in the $5 wine market), it was short, lasting about 3 seconds.

Tasting blind, I would have put this wine in the $7-9 dollar category, making it budgetary steal at....only $3.99.

Given my typical $15 budget, this wine put me a whopping 1.5% closer to my new iPhone goal.

....Looks like we will be enjoying this category for a while ;)

Wine Flaws - 3 Major Reasons Your Wine Stinks

It happens to the best of us - crikes, it happened to me last night (Hence why I am not writing to you about Macedonian Pinot Noir)...you open up a bottle of wine, after waiting all day at work for the  moment the delicious juice can pass your lips, only to be overwhelmed by the distinct desire to spit it out instantaneously upon contact.

Don't worry, its not you - its your wine.

Approximately 3% of all wines are flawed in some capacity & whether due to improper handling conditions, microbial (non-harmful except to flavor), or the infamous TCA or "corked" wine, they all result in a less then desirable drinking experience.

But how do you know your wine just sucks or if it stinks? Below, I outline the 3 main culprits of wine flaws & how you can spot them. Good news is bring any of these to the attention of your server or wine shop manager - and most good ones will quickly give you a new bottle on the house.

1. "Corked" Wine: Wines that are affected by TCA, or trichloroanisole account for the majority of flawed wines. The culprit stems from the process by which they clean the corks before selling them to wineries. While most of the molecule dissolves off the cork before being inserted into your bottle, some corks just don't let go - until your wine is sitting there vulnerable & within its grasp.

This agent causes wines to smell & taste like a moldy damp basement, filled with wet dogs lying on cardboard & eating a bowl of mushrooms. While the severity of TCA varies, even at low levels it can strip a wine of its fruitiness, leaving you to taste an unbalanced mess of grimy acidity & wet earth flavors.

2. Oxidation: No, your wine will never form rust on it, but it can become oxidized, and in many wines - much more quickly then you would think. While several types of oxidation actually create great complex wines, like in great aged Bordeaux's, or help a young tannic California Cabernet become more drinkable, overly oxidized wine is nothing to brag about.

As a drinker, you have 4 opportunities to decipher if your wine is oxidized: 1) The cork. The only reason why your server places the cork on your table after opening a wine is for you to inspect it. Is there a red dribble of wine from bottom to top? That's a sure sign your wine has been aerating for much longer then desired. 2) The Color. You can also spot an overly oxidized wine based upon its color in reference to the age of the wine. Is your 2 year Chardonnay looking a tad brassy? or is your newly purchased Pinot have distinctly brown edges? 3) The Nose. Smelling your wine leaves you with your third clue - oxidized wines simply just don't smell like much - a big difference from the corked aromas noted above. 4) The taste. Oxidized wines have greatly reduced fruit notes and if any fruit notes are present they are in the skin / dried fruit spectrum. Overall the acid and tannins will just taste way out of whack - even leaning towards vinegar in very dramatic cases.

As both white & red wines oxidize or age, they both turn a brick orange / brown

3. Brett: Short for Brettanomyces, Brett is a yeast found within wood wine barrels that creates the barnyard notes found in some wines. Typically only found in red's (as these are the wines that are most likely to use a barrel for ageing), Brett can actually enhance a wine at low levels & are preferred by some drinkers. However, at higher levels, these complex barnyard notes become distinctively "horsey" and overall unpleasant. Brett will not change the color of the wine, so the best place to detect is within the nose or bouquet of the wine.


As for my Pinot Noir from the Republic of Macedonia - well its browned edges and notes of leather, mushrooms, tea leaves, & zero fruit was quickly tossed down the kitchen sink. But have no fear - there is always another bottle just waiting for the chance to not dissapoint.

"SkinnyGirl"s Night - My Girl Friends Review "Real Housewife's" New Wine Blends

The first time I told a friend about this blog, she asked "Are you going to review the new SkinnyGirl wines?" Well, as I am never one to turn down any ideas, I recently purchased all three SkinnyGirl wine blends, White, Rose, & Red  and brought them to my esteemed wine critiques specifically chosen for the job: my girlfriends.

The Judges:

• Lauren, the white lover - bright & bubbly, she will happily walk out of beer tasting to a bar across the street to get herself a glass of white.
• Nancy, the sweet & pink gal - I have been trying to get Nancy to drink other wines over the past couple months, but alas to no avail.
• Michelle, red & ready. Michelle can always be found drinking red's with our wine loving guy friends.
• Plus myself to mitigate in case things got ugly -  although that's impossible with these ladies :)

The Defendant:
Bethenny Frankel, of The Real Housewifes of New York Fame, lauched a line of pre-mixed cocktails & wines that all claim to be under 100 calories a glass. The Margarita mix, which took off in sorority circles across the country (and what I found to be less preferable than the saline water they use at the dentist when you have braces in middle school) lead the way for this new catagory of skinny & health centric alcoholic beverages.

(They have to take the fun out everything don't they...)

Under review were her blended wines: a generic White Blend, Rose Blend, and Red Blend. The wines specifically are 100 calories for a 5 oz pour (Average Restaurant pours range from 4.5-6oz)

The Evidence:
While the idea of a WHOLE glass of wine for only the magical "100 calorie" mark may seem like a dream come true - the real truth is that most wines are only 110 calories for a 5oz pour. Below is a general breakdown:

• Dry Low-Regular Alcohol Whites & Reds: Wines like your Sauvignon Blancs, Pinots, Bordeaux, and Italian table wines are all going to only be 110 cal. / glass
• High Alcohol Reds: We all know alcohol levels are rising in hotter growing areas like California & Austrailia. Reds with alcohols above 14% like new world Syrahs & Zinfandels and some California Cabs will run you about 130 cal. / glass.
• Sweet Wines with Low Alcohol: In this catagory would be your Rieslings, some California Chards (oh you think they are dry, but many grocery story Chards have some residual sugar left), & Moscatos will have have about 130 - 150 cal./glass
• Dessert wines: Well these wines will stick you with a higher caloric bill having both sugar & alcohol and can stretch into the 200s for just a 4 oz pour.*

The Verdict:

White Blend: Overall, this was our top pick of the three, and to be honest, the only one really worth buying. An unknown white blend (I've look everywhere for what's in it  - nothing), it focused on floral notes of lime blossom, white lilly, baby's breath, & honey suckle along with fruit notes like nectarine, kiwi, pineapple. Aka., it hit all the girly white wine marks... but I will grant that it was refreshing. Per our white wine judge Lauren: "Yeah, I'd drink that." Overall, this wine was made for coktail parties where little food is being served & unless you are sticking to your diet and are only eating a light summer salad for dinner - has nothing much to bring to the table. We gave it a solid 7/10

Rose: While it got Nancy's approval - it was tentative at best, & at its $13 dollar price point, she definitely said she would still just rather buy the $5 Sutter Home White Zinfandel version and forgo the caloric benefit. She's right. The Rose, while made with Nancy in mind, had to take away most of what girls like her enjoy in their wines, a smooth, lightly sweet treat. With the sugar down, the tannins of the light touch of grape skins appeared rougher then myself or Nancy prefered. 5/10

Red Blend: I knew this wine wouldn't pass muster with Lauren or Nancy, but Michelle wasn't having any of it either - and rightfully so. This wine was the definition of a "disjointed wine" : a wine whose fruit notes (typically tasted on the front of the palate) did not ever connect with the tannins on the back of the palate. Whereas all winemakers aim to have these two elements, along with acidity, walk together hand in hand like happy-go-lucky school girls, this wine definately just suffered a girl-fight. Notes of red fruit like rasberrys, strawberries, & red plum skin shot evil glances across the playground at the moca & tobacco flavors. At the end of the day ladies, only serve this red blend to the fatty who stole your boyfriend. 2/10 with make-up on.

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Overall, if you want to save 10 calories while at the same time spending more money - go ahead and get the SkinnyGirl wines. Me & my girls - we are just going to stick with doing a couple more lunges :)

*Note: I have had several individuals show me their fancy calorie counter apps which say that a glass of red table wine is up to 260 calories. Politely - BS. I have consulted a couple Master Sommeliers & very educated wine shop owners who all agree with the above caloric descriptions.