Grilling Good Eats

By Mike Thayer

In honor of National Drink Wine Day - who thinks up these days of celebration things anyway? - Well, I'm rolling with it!

A drink review on a Chardonnay, produced by Clos du Bois

Clos du Bois is one of California's longest standing names in the marketplace, walk into almost any liquor store and you'll see their wines on the shelf.  Their Chardonnay is a popular choice because it's a reasonably priced, no-nonsense wine.  It's not top shelf stuff, but it's not bottom shelf stuff either.  This wine is popular because it delivers top shelf taste without the cost, a great bang for the Chardonnay buck.

Here are the tasting notes from the winemaker's website:  Brilliant silver straw yellow in color. Intense aromas of apple blossom, ripe pear, and sweet lemon drop are complemented by toasty oak, spice, and cream. In the mouth, the silky texture of the wine is overlaid with bright, juicy flavors of ripe apple and pear for a long and fresh finish.

Those tasting notes are spot on!  In layman's terms, it's good!

Chardonnay is also arguably the world’s most popular variety of white wine and in large part we have California to thank for that.  Winemakers there have successfully marketed the straightforward but very pleasant aromas of apple and pear and Clos de Bois is a pick of choice with many who keep a Chardonnay or two at the ready at home.  It's also a pick of choice in the bars as well.  That's saying something.

Costing me about $10, this is another wine that's easy to like, it's reasonably priced, drinks easy after a long day at work and compliments a variety of fish and chicken dishes, especially those prepared with butter, cream or herbal sauces.  It's a repeat buy and gets 4 out of 5 Bachelor on the Cheap stars!

$pend Wisely My Friends.....

Related:  Drink Review: The Ned Sauvignon Blanc

For more food and drink reviews go to www.bacheloronthecheap.com

By Mike Thayer

Here's a wine you may want to have on hand.

The Ned Sauvignon Blanc.

The Ned hails from New Zealand and the Marisco Vineyards located in the Waihopai Valley.  A number of wines made there are award winning, receiving accolades in several international competitions to include the Sauvignon Blanc.

If you're not familiar with what a Sauvignon Blanc is, it's a white wine, a dry wine with the fruity flavors of lime, green apple, passion fruit and white peach. What makes Sauvignon Blanc unique from other white wines are the other flavors a producer will include such as bell pepper, jalapeño, gooseberry and perhaps even a gram or two of sugar to add a bit of richness.

Here's the tasting note description of the wine from the Marisco Vineyards website:  Delightfully ripe aromas of gooseberry and white peach are laced with refreshing notes of kaffir lime. The fleshy mid palate is tamed by an underlying minerally acid backbone that culminates in a bright, zesty finish.

This wine is easy to like, it's bright, nicely fragrant and balanced.  All that flavor from a screw cap wine!  And I'm not any kind of wine connoisseur, but I'm not a wine snob either, I know what I like and this is a good one.   This is a pretty darn good wine, no cork needed!  Besides, after enjoying a glass, the bottle is easy to cap, you don't have to worry about trying to re-cork it or grab a wine stopper.  

Costing me about $10, I'm giving The Ned Sauvignon Blanc 4 out of 5 Bachelor on the Cheap stars.  It's reasonably priced, refreshing and pairs well with seafood, chicken dishes and salads.  It's definitely worthy of a repeat buy!

$pend Wisely My Friends.....

For more food, drink, product & service reviews, go to www.bacheloronthecheap.com