Lost Vineyards should stay that way

We always want to find nice, cheap wines. Sometimes, though, that quest leads only to sadness and disaster. Especially when Rachel Ray is involved.

A few weeks ago at Harris Teeter, there was a display of mediocre-looking wines listed at 3/$10. That's a steal! These were Trader Joe prices at the Teeter. The Lost Vineyards collection features wines from Portugal, Brazil, and Argentina. They're all blends - two reds and a white - and I think the thought behind it is that these growers took all their left-over grapes and blended them together to create these three.

The radical blending worried me, I think that Trader Joe's delicious wines follow a similar protocol for blending excess grapes from California, so that put me at ease a bit. Plus, there was a sign above the shoddily put-together display case showing how Rachel Ray endorsed them. Why would she lead us astray? After all, her reputation is on the line, right? She makes a living by telling people what's delicious. Clearly, this was delicious.

Rachel Ray was wrong, and so was I to believe her. The white has all the character of that creepy guy you don't want to sit next to on the bus. The one red I did open - the one from Argentina - was bad on day one, not awful on day two after a little air had hit it, and on day four had turned to vinegar and left me sprinting to the sink to spit it out.

Recommendation: do not buy Lost Vineyards, and don't believe anything Rachel Ray says.

West Virginia Wines

I love West Virginia. It might be one of my favorite places on earth. Just driving through the WVA mountains relaxes me. We just returned from a weekend family get-away there and came back with some interesting new tidbits on WVA.

1) A stop at Tamarack, where the best of West Virginia is sold, introduced us to the many fruit wines of WVA. We bought a bottle of blueberry wine but haven't tried it yet. Based on the inventory at Tamarack we inferred that WVA must not be a good place to grow grapes for dry wine.

2) We learned that WVA taxes alcohol 11%. Random, but good to know when checking prices...

3) We learned that WVA's' looser liquor laws allow even Rite Aide to carry hard liquor (including grain alcohol, which is certainly illegal in VA). We called my brother, who's in a VA fraternity, but he didn't need us to pick any up for him. We experienced culture shock at the large amount of alcohol and wine available at the Charleston Rite Aide.

Side note: We were not really in WVA for the purposes of drinking, nor do we only focus on alcohol. My grandmother sent us on a wine run for her party, and although we were confused when her directions took us to the Rite Aide, we soon learned why.

teacher salary, wine lover

In the last few years I've made the disappointing discovery that:

1) I like wine
2) Wine is expensive
3) I love my job
4) I love it more after a glass of wine at the end of the day
5) My job will never pay me enough to pretend to be in Sideways. (To be honest I couldn't even stay awake during the film because I was tired after a long day of teaching)

So, in the last few years we've tried different ways to bring together my love of wine and my small pay scale.

1) Box wine. - While this is fun for those alcoholic months, it doesn't give you that same satisfaction. It's kind of like that natty light in college. It got the job done, but was it really a job that was needed in the first place? Sometimes you're better off sober.

2) 3 buck Chuck via Trader Joe's. I discovered this my first year out of college and it got me and my friends through some times. Raise a glass to Trader Joe's.

3) The Williamsburg Winery wine that frequently goes on sale in the grocery store for $6.99. It's fabulous, and it feels like a taste of VA culture. I wonder if we're supporting the historical society by drinking it. Hmmmm....

4) Stay away from fancy wines. A good friend knew nothing about wine until she started working at the society of wine educators. Now she can drink with the rest of them but can no longer enjoy my spiked Trader Joe's grape juice. Improving my tastes might make me more socially acceptable, but it will only hurt my wallet.

Hopefully this blog will help us continue to explore the non-wine connoisseur side of the wine world.