"About Leina" - installment the second

Today's installment: drinks ten-dollar red wines.

(Note: I happen to be drinking a glass of this week's cheap-o red wine as I write this post.)

I was never one for wines growing up. The only wine I could bear to sip was communion wine since it was after all, the blood of Christ. At a Santa Clara County dispatchers banquet ten or nine years ago (I'm not a dispatcher, by the way, my s.o. is.), I barely drank three-quarters of a glass of red wine and was pulled over driving home. Thank goodness, the kind officer didn't give me a ticket.

Church wine was white wine, so I could tolerate it and liked to cook with it. (If you're curious, St. Bede Church used Christian Brothers wine back in the 1980s and 1990s.) Red wine burns my throat and just makes me drunk way too fast. I always thought that the only useful application for red wine was beef stroganoff. If I had that kind of mentality, well, what changed my mind about red wine?

This past June, Brian and I were staying at the Fairmont in downtown SJ the night before our wedding, and when we got to the room, on the table was a complimentary bottle of wine from the hotel manager. Stone Cellars cabernet sauvignon. We were so exhausted from driving around, doing last minute errands, that this cab sauv was the best red wine we had ever tasted. We relaxed and were ready for what tomorrow was going to bring us. Yeah, that changed my mind forever.

I have a thing for ten-dollar red wines because of the red wine we stocked up on for our honeymoon cruise. At the Publix supermarket in Cape Canaveral, we picked up three bottles of red wine, each one for ten-dollars or less. Rex Goliath merlot, Red Diamond cabernet sauvignon, and BV cabernet sauvignon. For cheap wines, they were all yummy. And most importantly, they didn't burn my throat.

Because I'm always looking out for red wine deals, I figure I'd have a regular feature called "Cheap-o red wine of the week." I don't have an educated and refined wine palate that will let me discern notes and aromas, but if the wine tastes good and doesn't burn my throat, I will post about it!

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Cheap-o red wine of the week:
Fetzer Vineyards cabernet sauvignon, $5.99 with the club card at Safeway

Good stuff!