By Jesse on May 7, 2008
Last month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday adventure was a freeballin’, full-sprint marathon tasting in which we polished off a bottle of French Cab Franc, took meticulous notes, snapped and uploaded copious amounts of photos, and resized and formatted those photos using my time-consuming system which Jessica insists is inefficient (but which I continue to swear by). Then we uploaded the whole mess onto the blog, all within an hour’s time, and made it to Newsha’s for the Green Wines tasting — harried and disheveled, but only about ten minutes late. It was a frantic and desperate endeavor, and I promised myself it would never be that way again.

One month later, I’m in the familiar position of sitting on Jason’s floor, funneling our response to WBW #45 onto the blog, maniacally resizing photos, and frequently checking my watch. No time to stress out, though — the weekly meeting is imminent, and there’s a delicious bottle of Riesling to talk about before it begins. (more…)
By Jesse on May 6, 2008
After spending several arduous hours drinking by the pool, Emily was loathe to let the festivities end just because the sun was getting lower in the sky, so she invited the Winos over to her house and promised to grill up some huge burgers. Andrew and I had the sense to take her up on her offer, as well as the foresight to go and grab two hefty bottles of Petite Sirah that had recently been sent our way by the good people at Aaron Jackson and Michael-David, respectively.

Why pair Petite Sirah with hamburgers? Well, when you’re dealing with a meal that’s delicious, but might not be considered haute cuisine, you want a wine that’s similar: mouth-watering, flavorful, and free of affectation. Enter big-and-bold Petite Sirah, with its massive fruit, sinister spice, and serious backbone. If there was any grape that was going to make our taste buds as horny as those burgers were going to, it was this one. As responsible journalists, though, we thought it best to start by tasting each wine on its own, prior to the hot beef injection. (more…)