Tasting- Beauvert Cotes du Rhone

The fourth wine the Vintage Cellar offered was called Bastide de Beauvert Cotes du Rhone.This wine is from the Rhone valley in France. The grapes were pick in 2009 and according to http://www.cellartracker.com are a blend of grenache and carignan grapes.
The Vintage Cellar said that this wine was supposed to feel "silky" and have "round tannins" but honestly, this wine was just not very pleasant.It tasted smokey, but not in a good way. It was more like smoking a cigarette than drinking wine.It definitely made my mouth dry out the way that Dr. Boyer said tannins would, so I think the Vintage Cellar's description of that was pretty spot on. I'm not sure I would want to try this wine again, but since it's only $11.95, I can at least afford to if I decide I want to one day.

Tasting- Doural Tinto

The next wine I tried at the Vintage Cellar was a wine from Portugal called Doural Tinto. www.snooth.com says that this wine is made from Tinto Cão and Touriga Nacional grapes and that the grapes were picked in 2009. This wine was the cheapest one that the Vintage Cellar offered at only $8.95. I'm glad the price is so low on this because i would definitely like to try it again.
This wine was pretty interesting. I thought it tasted really spicy so maybe I would try it again with Mexican food or with a steak. The Vintage Cellar described this wine as "spice, cherry, and dark berry." I can't say that I really noticed any of the cherry or dark berry, but I could definitely taste how spicy the wine was. Overall, this wine was pretty good!!

Tasting- Nykteri Santorini Yannis

The second wine that the Vintage Cellar gave us to sample was called Nykteri Santorini Yannis. This wine is from Santorini, Greece and http://www.santonet.gr/wineries/wines.htm says the wine comes from  "Assyrtico, Athiri and Aidani" grapes.The grapes for this wine were picked in 2010. Since the Vintage Cellar sells this wine at $13.95, it's a relatively cheap option especially if I want to try it out again.
The Vintage Cellar described this wine as smelling like " jasmine, citrus fruits, flowers, and pear." I didn't really smell any of those, but I probably am just not experienced enough yet to notice.
I did not like this wine as much as I liked the first one, and I had a lot more trouble trying to describe the flavors. When I drank the wine, my mouth just felt dry and I could tell how much more tannins the wine contained. I think wine would have seemed a lot more pleasant and flavorful if I had eaten it with food. Since the wine is pretty inexpensive, maybe I'll give it another shot when I have some more experience  with wine and can pick out the flavors better.

Movendo Moscato

This Moscato, called Movendo, was the first Moscato I have ever tried, and it was definitely delicious!! This wine was super sweet and it felt like I was drinking juice or sparkling cider. I actually ended up finishing this bottle much more quickly than I was expecting because it tasted so good. This was the first white wine I've ever really had just by itself and not accompanied by food, and it was still very drinkable without having food to ease up on the taste. It seemed to be almost like a "starter" wine that most people, even those with very little wine drinking experience, would be very pleased to drink.This is a wine that I definitely want to buy again for myself, but this time drink more slowly so I can focus on the tastes more.This wine was only about $10 at Food Lion, so I can definitely afford to try it again too! This wine is from the Puglia region of Italy, according to http://riverroadwine.com/  and made from the Moscato grape. I made a pretty good first choice with this one!

Tasting- Casa Bianca Spumante Rosato

This morning I went to the Vintage Cellar for my first wine tasting ever! The first wine I sampled was Casa Bianca Spumante Rosato. This was a sparkling Italian wine and was a really pretty pink color. This was a pretty good wine to start off with. It was sweet and pleasant and crisp. It seemed to almost "prepare" you for sampling the rest of the wines. Coffee is my morning drink of choice and  I did not really feel like I needed to be drinking wine that early in the morning, but trying this one was a good transition from morning grogginess into early afternoon wine drinkin'!

This wine is made from the Pinot Nero grape and the Vintage Cellar noted that it is from  "the vineyards of Montello and the hills of Asoli" which are areas in northern Italy. The label of the bottle of was very simple and unfortunately did not note the year the grapes were picked, but looked very fitting for the bottle. The effect of the color of the wine, shape of the bottle, and design of the label made a very "classy" looking wine.

The Vintage Cellar described this wine as "spicy" with "a fine, persistent mousse, juicy fresh red fruit." I don't think my wine skills are advanced enough to notice all of that yet. What stood out to me the most was the tactile effects on my mouth. It felt really fizzy and made my mouth kind of pucker up, but it was still very sweet.
This was one of the wines I enjoyed the most of the ones I tried today and since the Vintage Cellar sells it for $11.95, it's definitely in my budget!