Purple Cowboy: Tenacious Red

I recently celebrated my birthday and one of my girlfriends threw me a "classy but trashy" party. What's that, you say? Well, we had super classy food and wine but in trashy ways! Beer Pong? puh-lease. Us classy girls play WINE pong! It was super fun and Mela went all out, complete with two lobsters, super aged and organic steak, a mimosa bar, and bottles and bottles of wine for us to do blind tastings. The fun and presents never stopped and it was a birthday I will never ever forget. MELA - YOU ROCK! I love you!

So back to the purpose of this post (other than relishing in the awesomeness of my friend). One of the wines that we had in our blind tasting was this one: PURPLE COWBOY. As soon as I tried it... I was in love. It's a nice mellow red with an easy finish. I love the body and fullness of the flavour. It was rich and... just so good. Like chocolate. If Michael Buble's voice were a wine, this would be it. Yup, that amazing and even a couple days after it was still just as good (so no, it wasn't the drunk-me just claiming it was good). It's from Napa Valley. No idea how much it cost but Mela really went all out and she has an elevated palate so I can't imagine it's a cheap bottle. Need to get my hands on more bottles of these!

Fuzion

 Christmas season = Family time, vacation, work parties and... Secret Santa gift exchanges. This year was a bit ridiculous for me. Since I switched jobs halfway through the year and my new job has a team, a department and building party planning committees, there was a ridiculous amount of holiday festivities.

A safe bet if you're doing a secret santa gift swap with gift stealing is booze. To give or to receive. (Lotto tickets also work well but I find booze to be more instantaneously fulfilling). Anyway, I ended up with this bottle of fuzion. I expect it was under $15 since that was the max amount for our exchange. At two separate gift exchanges it showed up so I figure it must be a pretty decent wine.

Being a blend of Shiraz and Malbec, you'd expect something typically spicy. Surprisingly, it was quite smooth and mellow. An easy to drink wine that would pair well with a steak dinner. I had it on its own and it wasn't 'OHMIGOD, this is AMAZING', but a nice 'I could drink this again'. I might even buy it if I were going to a friends house for dinner. 8 out of 10.

Apothic Red

This is a food and WINE blog... so where's the wine, you ask? Good point. I haven't reviewed wines for so long which doesn't by any means mean that I haven't been drinking it... just bad at reviewing and posting!

I have to credit Andrea for introducing me to this next wine - Apothic Red. It retails for about $20 in BC Liquor stores and half the price down in the States. Yes, I know. We get ripped off.

Here's a link to their website: http://www.apothic.com/wine.html

Essentially, in lamen's terms, Apothic is a shit mix of varieties. But a GOOD shitmix. It has Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blended together for this smooth, chocolately velvet taste. Fantastic smooth finish. None of that gross dryness or tannins on your tongue afterwards. You should probably let it breathe a few minutes before drinking but I had bought one of those Vinturi wine decanters and none of us could taste the difference. Maybe I wasn't drunk enough but this wine sure had me reaching for my glass a lot!

Anyway, all in all a great wine. Sophisticated label, worth the price range (even at $20) and a bargain if half the price.

Wolf Blass: 2006 Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon

My friend Naz brought over this bottle of red wine. Can't remember if I liked it or not! I drank it all so I can only figure that I did...I'm giving it an 8 out of 10.