The top weather/news story here in Florida this week is Hurricane Hermine. And, playing off this theme, we chose a wine called Class 5 Hurricane. Lucky for us, Hurricane Hermine was barely a hurricane at only class one and did very little damage where we are staying, but still a fun way to build on our current Florida experience. This wine is made by Florida Orange Groves Winery, http://floridawine.com, that uses “untraditional” fruits for winemaking. Their tagline is, “Finally! Wines that taste good”! Although many of you reading the blog would typically choose wines made from grapes, join us in this fun break from tradition.
It’s been a few years since Neil and I have lived in St Petersburg, FL but we are in town temporarily to fix up our house. While we are here, we’ve been trying to figure out a good place to buy wine besides the grocery store. An ABC Fine Wines and Spirits, http://www.abcfws.com, was built down the road after we left and last week we just happened to find out that they were holding their semi-annual wine tasting. When we called the store about making a reservation, we found out there would be over 50 samples of wine and spirits. Obviously we planned to check it out!
This week’s WineAndCheeseFriday was inspired by a bottle of wine from New York. Our neighbor Val’s mom had been saving this bottle from near where she grew up, and decided to give it to Val to see how she liked it. The bottle of wine was from Merritt Winery (http://www.merrittestatewinery.com) in the Lake Erie Wine Region. Knowing that wine region and it’s tendency to be sweet wine, we planned to have some savory snacks to balance it all. Val had a different idea, she though we should have some cheesecake with the wine, which I wouldn’t say no to, so we ended up having both sweet and savory snacks. When Val was picking up the snacks at Publix, she came across another bottle of sweet wine from San Sebastian Winery in Florida (http://www.sansebastianwinery.com) to bring along. She also brought a friend along, Jessica, to join in the fun. We decided to share the wine fun with our other neighbor, Amanda, so there were 5 of us in total. This is a slightly different group but our second time all getting together for a wine tasting (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/135469941803/gouda-goat-cheese-with-chardonnay-and-grenache). And now onto the shenanigans!
This week’s WineAndCheeseFriday entry stemmed from curiosity, like most of our entries. The first time we tried Salice Salentino, it was a bottle we had picked up at Trader Joe’s since it was an inexpensive Italian wine that we didn’t know. We decided to have it with dinner and found it to be a very easy to drink wine. We had it a few times more until I decided to feature it in my “Search for an Inexpensive Dinner Wine at Trader Joe’s” entry, https://wineandcheesefriday.com/the-search-for-an-inexpensive-dinner-wine-at-trader-joes/. We knew we liked it but until then had never really taken the time to write tasting notes.
This week’s WineAndCheeseFriday entry, Tasting Wine Ice Cream by Winey Munkies, will wrap up our series of “Wine Fun” in Reno. Neil and I have never tried wine ice cream before but were curious when we saw the Winey Munkies food truck at Food Truck Friday, https://www.facebook.com/RenoStreetFood/ at the beginning of our trip to Reno. Although we didn’t try it that night, I was still thinking about it a few days later so I found the Winey Munkies Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/WineyMunkiesReno/ and contacted them to see where they would be next? I’d be able to find them at Food Truck Friday the next week so I made a plan to head out there.
Last week we told you that we had tons of “wine fun” while we were in Reno, so here’s your next entry. Dorinda’s Chocolates (http://dorindaschocolates.com) was next door to Hub, the coffee shop where we spent a bunch of time working in Reno. On our first day there, I was gazing out the window and noticed the menu hanging on the wall for Dorinda’s. There were wine flights and wine and chocolate pairings so obviously I made my way over there pretty quickly. We spoke to Dorinda, the owner, and she let us know that they had a weekly wine and chocolate pairing event on Thursday’s so the plan was set.