I was about to suggest Moscato, which seems to be all over every wine store these days.
About the Finger Lakes area and its wines and wineries, here’s an article that has it as one of “America’s Best Wine Regions to Visit, Ranked by Sommeliers”
I’ve driven through the area but never spent time there, and was amazed to see it ranked at #1, beating out Napa, Sonoma etc.!
Good call; I do like a good Sangria, and that’s one of the few wine-related things my family and I agree on. For me, it’s a warm/hot-weather drink, served iced.
There’s always Kalimotxo, equal parts red wine and coke, poured over ice. It grows on you.
Apparently, Arbor Mist agrees.
I’m no wine snob but if I received a bottle I’d not pour it down the sink as others have suggested, but use it for coolers or the one guest who doesn’t really drink.
For an inexpensive wine-related gift you can add wine glass charms.
…I assume this has to do with beer or whiskey. I’m not a drinker of either, but I like tawny ports because of the “rich, caramely” notes.
Can you go into more detail on what this is and maybe recommend a brand or two I could try please?
Scotch; and other single-malt whiskeys. I’ll let Tamerlane steer you towards his picks.
ETA; The rich caramely notes in port are NOT the same as in Scotch.
This thread has brought back a lot of memories of high-school drinking. Though I am curious about kalimotxo … could be awesome, and I just have never thought to mix Coca-Cola and red wine.
Yes, Scotch as ExTank noted. Here’s a recent and brief overview by Forbes. With a few exceptions they tend to have a very different flavor profile than Islay Scotch like Ardbeg. I’ve said this many times, but the intense, smoky, peaty styles of Islay malts to me is reminiscent of water that has been collected from the bottom of a low-smoldering tire fire after three days of drizzle then mixed with denatured alcohol. I’m not a fan :).
However I probably shouldn’t be suggesting brands, because I’m not really a regular Scotch drinker. Glenmorangie is apparently the best-selling single malt in Scotland, so maybe that implies the Budweiser of single malts ;). But as Scotch goes( not far, with me )I rather liked their Port-casked version.
Hmm…I’ll take your wink in the spirit it was intended, but I’ll note that, when it comes to higher-end/quality stuff (foods, beers, wines, liquors, etc.), there’s a Venn diagram of price vs. quality, aka, “What I Can Afford vs. What I’d Like To Buy.”
I somehow suspect I’m not alone in doing this, and it could simply be that Glenmorangie hits the intersection for a lot of people.
Angelo Mariani did; in fact Coca-Cola is the rip-off version. The monks at Buckfast Abbey had similar ideas, which brings us back to Scotland.
I once had a glass of Dom Perignon back when it was $150 a bottle and I can’t say I enjoyed it five times as much as the $30 ‘swill’ we were drinking for the rest of the party. Hell, my uneducated palate could not tell the difference.
After 40 years of wine-drinking, any expertise I’ve developed is not because of deep study of viniculture, but simply by drinking and enjoying one hell of a lot of wine.
While there is a world’s worth of difference between a $10 and a $30 bottle, it’s much more difficult to notice that between $30 and $150.
$30 is hardly swill in most wine offerings today; in fact, $30 is, IMO, “cut above” territory. Like you, though, I get the same effect with wines; after the $30-$40 price mark, I can’t tell much of a difference, but I’m not an expert. But I can tell a difference between quite a few $5-$10 wines and $20-$30 wines. And I have also been pleasantly surprised by some of the lower-end offerings. Price is no guarantee of quality, it’s just a basic guideline.
Whiskeys on the other hand…I’m not much of a liquor drinker, usually because most of the standard ~$40/bottle offerings, “Jack, Jim, & Jose” hit my mouth like pre-lit gasoline, and doesn’t get much better going down.
But as the price starts going up, I do notice whiskeys getting considerably smoother. The one bottle of liquor I keep in the house is ~$80-$100 (depending on where you buy it) single malt Irish Whiskey, it is very smooth, and I can actually taste some of those hints of oak, honey, etc. Good thing I’m not a heavy drinker; my $90 bottle of whiskey is a bit over a year old, and is right around the 1/2 mark.
That’s why I put it in quotes. It was the attitude of the guy who brought the Dom Perignon, not mine.
When I got married in 1986 I had my first adventure in champagne buying. I went to the local Liquor Barn and the sparkling wine aisle took up both sides. It started on the right with Andre at $2 a bottle and increased in price as you went down the aisle. At the end it jumped to the right side and came back, with the last four feet or so in a locked cage so the DP and Andre were confronting each other across the aisle. I moved about halfway down the left side and plucked six samples ranging from 6 to 12 dollars. They were tasted by a gathering of DesertWife-to-be and her friends so they could pick their favorite. We turned it into a surprise bachelorette party for DW.
If you’re paying $40 a bottle for standard Jack Daniels or Jim Beam, you’re getting robbed. Jose Cuervo (I assume), doubly so. They have premium offering, of course, that can get quite pricey.
Having been in the military, I drank JD (it was practically a requirement) but got annoyed at them when they dropped the black label from 86 to 80 proof. I cast about for a couple years before a friend turned me on to Bulleit. It is quite nice for the price.