Fat Bastard Cabernet Sauvignon, Five Rivers Pinot Noir, Domaine Ste Michelle

This whole life thing keeps getting in the way of my ability to blog about our wine adventures. My boss got a new boss, which means that my job changed, which means that all the work that I’ve been working on is irrelevant, which means that I have a whole new laundry list to focus on, which means that I work later than normal, which means that, today for example, I estimate that I wrote about 4,000 lines of code. This will drive one to drink. It has.
Accordingly, Treasa’s new job, while going very well, takes up more than a few minutes of her day. Add in the hour each way commute, and I’m (still) left (sometimes) doing most of the household chores. Please note the half made bed in the background of the picture.

It was all I could to do prevent Treasa from throwing away these bottles before I could take a picture of them. Now, while my meatballs are marinating (Yes, I marinate my meatballs), I have the ability to finally blog. Ta, da!

Fat Bastard cabernet sauvignon: If I remember correctly, we had this with a good pair of steaks. Treasa and I fought over the last half glass. This obviously isn’t the best glass of wine ever, but for ~$10, it’s one that, like a Bob Seger album, should be experienced more than it is.

Five Rivers Winery California pinor noir: I liked this more than Treasa did. It was above average without food. We paired it with a hearty pasta dish which over matched it a bit.

Domaine Ste Michelle champagne: By this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they sent us a holiday card. I had left over bratwurst, which was all sorts of amazing. Treasa thought to pair it with champagne. Somewhat weird. But that’s the story.

Paradocx Touriga and Domaine Ste Michelle Champagne

Last night, July 26th, was our one month wedding anniversary, so we celebrated with a filet mignon, roasted potato, roasted sweet potato and corn dinner. And, obviously, a bottle wine. This celebration, mind you was different from the fourth Saturday of married life celebration we had two days prior we had with friends. I swear, if Treasa ever got a job at Hallmark, she’d make them a fortune with her ability to invent holidays that husbands are legally, at least by the law that counts, obligated to celebrate.

I did the usual burnt herb roasted potato side, but also got frisky and tried something with sweet potatoes too. To contrast the burnt, savory herb flavor of the former, I did the latter with more of a Persian flair with a hint of cinnamon sugar. Treasa nuked the frozen corn, added a stick of butter for each week of our marriage, the steaks came off the grill, and we sat down to eat.

We had a Paradocx Touriga left over from the wedding. Not only was this sentimental and thoughtful, but practical as the wine goes well with red meats. It also gave us an excuse to try our new Vinturi wine aerator, which was a wedding present from Treasa’s aunt and uncle. I’ll be honest, I really can’t tell you if it works because we didn’t aerate one glass and just uncork and pour the second one to have a taste test. (I’ll try to remember to do it next time though). However, the aerator is really easy to use, dishwasher safe and makes a really cool sound when you pour wine through it. So even if it is a gimmick, which I doubt, the sound effects are worth any incremental effort.

And partially because we still have most of a case left over from the wedding and because it’s really good for twelve-ish dollars, we relaxed after cleaning up the kitchen with a bottle of Domaine Ste Michelle.

Pierre Darcy’s Brut Champagne

I’ve fallen a little behind getting the honey moon exploits in blog format. This entry relates to our 5th day in Ireland, Sunday, July 3rd. We spend the day in Waterford. We arrived late morning and were taken aback by the ghost town likeness of the city. We stopped into a pub for lunch. After we finished, we were astounded at how the city had come to life. Apparently, either you go to church on Sunday mornings in Waterford, or you don’t show your face in public if you didn’t.

Prior to arriving at Waterford Castle, we stopped and got a bottle of Champagne for the night (along with a few other bottles, but those are for another post). Funny how you can get booze in a town on Sunday where people are afraid to show their face if they aren’t in church, but in Pennsylvania you’re SOL.

We found a E38 bottle of Pierre Darcy’s Brut Champagne for 50% off. We didn’t notice this until after we paid, but it’s a blend of Chardonnay, Pinor Noir and Pinor Meunier.

We arrived at the Castle, unloaded the luggage and I parked the turbo diesel. Somehow in the course of checking in, the fact that we were on our honeymoon emerged as a focal point of the conversation. Almost on cue, the concierge told us that we were upgraded to the Presidential Suite.


This. Was. The. Best. Hotel. Room I. Could. Possibly. Imagine. Our suite had its own foyer. Our bathroom was about the size of the first floor of our home in Delaware. It had a living room with a flat screen, two couches, a desk, dining table and three or four bookcases. (If you go to the link above and wait for the page to scroll through the photos, you’ll see a few of the room we stayed in). The master bedroom was probably a third of an acre. We decided that we could manage in these accommodations, and uncorked the champagne. Lemon and apple flavors were apparent. It was good, and we certainly didn’t complain, though Treasa and I prefer the bubbly a tad drier.

Henriot Souverain Brut

This post refers to Tuesday, June 29th, our first night in Ireland. Treasa and I flew into Shannon and proceeded to the car rental counter to pick up our Hyundai i30 turbo diesel. This car was really fun to drive. Except for the fact that everything was on ‘the wrong side.’ The driver’s seat was on the right, you drove on the left side of the road and I had to shift with my left hand. Luckily, the pedals were oriented normally, with the clutch on the left, brake in the middle and gas to the right.

And if that wasn’t nerve wracking enough, a combination of narrow, seemingly medieval roads and psychotic Irish drivers was sufficient to make me wholeheartedly appreciate my first Guinness. But I’ll get to that. In so far as the roads were concerned, picture this: all of the various and frequent corners are blind because the road serface is below field level with grasses and shrubbery lining the pavement. One road was so narrow that the aforementioned grass was hitting each of the side mirrors and the speed limit was 80 km/hr. And for the cherry on top, the road is a two way street!


After driving north to see the Cliffs of Moher, we head back down near Limerick to the Adare Manor. If you follow golf, you’ll recognize Adare Manor from the JP McMannus ProAm Tiger Woods played in the weekend following our stay. Because of the upcoming event, we saw the Manor’s grounds in a state of absolute perfection.

We went into the clubhouse for the golf course, watched some Gaelic football, and had our first Irish Guinness. It really does taste better there. Then had our second.


By this time it was getting close to dinner, so we had a bottle champagne sent up to our room while we were getting ready. The staff selected the cheapest champagne on the wine list…for E78 (I’m going to use a capital ‘E’ to denote Euro’s) which after the American Express currency conversion, leaves me with a $106 line item on this month’s credit card statement. And this is how we were introduced to Henriot Souverain Brut. By no means was this a bad bottle of champagne, but I feel comfortable putting a ‘nothing special’ label on it. And considering Domaine Ste Michelle can be had for about $95 less, well, we’ll chalk this one up to first night on the honeymoon indulgences.

Pat Me On The Back

So the handful of page viewers we’ve had so far are probably wondering, ‘What’s up with the Domaine Ste Michelle? It’s all over this corner of the internet.’ Well, you’re right. It is. And it is.

Here’s a little independent validation.

Results were compiled, analyzed and reviewed by a team that included statisticians, neuroscientists and economists.
Among the surprises: More than two-thirds of tasters preferred a $12 Domaine St. Michelle Brut, a Washington state sparkling wine, to a $150 Dom Pérignon Champagne.

And if our wine qualifications ever come into question, just look at the background of the picture in the previous post. Yep, that’s about it. We drink a lot of wine.

Francois Montand Extra Dry

Today marks ten days to our wedding. So I went to the liquor store to find something to celebrate with, partially due to Treasa’s suggestion and mostly because our champagne cache was null.

The knowledgeable, though overly eyeshadowed, woman at Toys R Us for grownups suggested a Francois Montand Blanc de Blancs champagne. Given that she also said that Prosecco was dry—which potentially conflicts with the first sentence of this paragraph—I went for the drier bottle: Francois Montand Extra Dry.

This bottle was a little less dry than the Domaine Ste Michelle, but carried a rounder presentation with a more flavorful finish. I can’t really say which one I prefer between the two, regardless of the extra dollar necessary to take home a little piece of Mr. Montand.

Domaine Ste Michelle Extra Brut

Yesterday was three weeks until the wedding. We celebrated with another bottle of Domaine Ste Michelle champagne. Being the romantic that I am, I put on The Bourne Identity and we stayed in for the night.

The champagne, as usual, was enjoyable. My picture of the bottle, on the other hand, was not.

Domaine Ste Michelle

Seems fitting that we start our journey with something we drink fairly often. To enjoy a bottle of bubbly, you have to shell out for a bottle of Dom, right? Hardly. Treasa and I enjoy champagne that, on the sweet-to-dry scale, falls pretty far towards the latter. And if we could find something that doesn’t cost us an arm and a leg, perfect. (Or else how would we walk to the wine fridge and pop the cork?) Domaine Ste Michelle fits the palatable-affordable description perfectly.

I usually pick up a bottle or two of DSM – I/we don’t actually call it that…it just seemed appropriate to type at the time – normally for about $11-$12. Does it taste like a really good bottle of champagne? No. But you could do a whole lot worse at this price point.

Typically champagne is called on for a celebration of sorts. Today was no different. Treasa and I are getting married at the end of June. Today, give or take a day or so, marks 9 weeks to go. Plus the cake, and champagne seemed appropriate. The cakes you see pictured were, past tense at this point as they didn’t last long, the wedding cake samples from Liz Marden. The heart shaped champagne flutes were complimentary from when we registered at Crate and Barrel.