Wine of the Month Club Archives

Gifts For Your Favorite Wine Lover

Wine lovers are easy to buy for — they readily consume your gift, sometimes sharing with you! How great is that. This list of gifts for your favorite wine lover includes some of my all time favorites.

Travel With Sandi is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and other affiliate programs. An affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees.

The Wine

I am a big fan of Nakedwines.com. They create a marketing and delivery opportunity for small, independent winemakers by offering essentially a group retail outlet. Your Angel subscription will help support dedicated winemakers around the world. When you click on the Nakedwines.com link, you will receive a $100 discount voucher on Angel prices when you spend $159.99 or more on your first order. Not sure where to start, check out this Luis Viera Lente review.

I love trying new wines and Wine Of The Month Club is a fun way to explore new and exciting wineries. Two summers ago, I had an extended house guest last year, when she finally got her living situation sorted out, she sent me a six month membership to the Wine of the Month Club. I loved every bottle.

One of my favorite vintners is 90+ Cellars. Their Old Vine Malbec is amazing and well under $20 which makes it the perfect upscale wine as a hostess gift or for a small diner party. I like to keep a case on-hand so I have a bottle to give….or enjoy.

Want to add an interesting twist to your wine gift giving, Cratejoy offers over a dozen different wine gifting options. Now that’s what I call a selection. Bring on the bubbly!

The Wine Accessories

My number one Christmas request this year is a Wine Frig. I definitely want one that is free standing, not interested in reconstruction in the kitchen! This one holds 12 bottles, more than enough for a fun party!

Another hot item is this Wine Genius Wine Opener with a Vacuum Sealer. With the vacuum cork sealer, your wine will stay fresher longer. That might ruin your excuse for another glass to finish the bottle before it goes bad. Sorry.

No matter what you choose, your wine loving recipient will be overjoyed at your thoughtful gift. I really enjoyed putting together some of my favorite wine ideas with this list of gifts for your favorite wine lover. Cheers!

Hope you enjoy the journey,

Sandi

PS Check out my Nakedwines.com unboxing on YouTube.

Wine Review – Mira Vos

I’m just a girl who loves to try wine – I’m not an expert – for sure!

I’m just a girl who loves to try wine – I’m not an expert – for sure! I hope you enjoy my Wine Review of Mira Vos.

Travel With Sandi is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Travel With Sandi also participates in the Awin and CJ Affiliate programs.

My sister sent my me a six month subscription to The Wine of The Month Club as a thank you. She had a lag in coordinating all her moving dates together, so she bunked with my family for a few months.

This is a great gift because Chris (hubby) and I love to try new wines. The first box arrived this week and the red wine was a Syrah, Mira Vos from Mendoza, Argentina. It is a young wine, 2018, as you can imagine the flavors haven’t had time to develop and as with most young wines, you need to get past the acidic young wine aftertaste.

With the box was the Bunch of Grapes Newsletter containing lots of great information about the wines. We also received a bottle of Payadores from Chile – the topic of another blog once we open it! It is fun to taste and consider how to write the Wine Review of Mira Vos.

The tastes suggested for this wine are cinnamon, tart cherries, raspberry and some floral notes. I definitely tasted the tart cherries and Chris tasted the cinnamon. The color was a beautiful claret. This wine would be great with a dark meat heavy dish like lamb. Since I am basically a vegetarian – I drank it with a yummy Brie and it was fabulous!

The newsletter stated “50% of them (the grapes) received thermoflash winemaking, and the other 50% received tradition viticulture”. According to ADVISOR Wind Industry Network Blog, “Thermoflash, known widely in Europe as “flash détente”, is a process of thermovinification created during the 1990’s in France. It works by heating the must of crushed grapes to a set temperature (usually around 185°F/85°C) then sending the hot grapes to a high vacuum chamber where temperature drops quickly causing some of the liquid in the must to “flash” into steam. The rapid expansion of steam causes the cell walls of the vacuoles in the skins to break open allowing immediate color and tannin extraction while also releasing aromatic compounds.” Wow! That is a process I haven’t seen before. Maybe when we get to France later this year, it will be in use at one of the vineyards we visit.

I enjoyed this young Mira Vos, it’s sharp notes and even the acidic finish. A good wine for a modest budget.

Cheers!

Sandi

The opinions about this wine are mine alone.

Wine Review – Payadores

Payadores, a Sauvignon Blanc from Valle Central, Chile

Payadores, a Sauvignon Blanc from Valle Central, Chile, was the second bottle I recieved in my Wine of the Month Club January 2019 shipment. I hope you enjoy my wine review – Payadores as much as I did preparing to write it!

I’m just a girl who loves wine and these opinions are 100% my own. Everyone chooses a wine for different reasons – type, label, history, etc. Sometimes the wine is a gift, sometimes it’s what you can afford, most of the time it is a fun journey.

My sister was staying withus for three months while in a housing transition. Her thank you gift was a 6 month subscription to the Wine of the Month Club! She knows me well. One of my favorite things to do is try new wines.

According to the accompanying newsletter, Bunch of Grapes, Payadores has “A sweet, bright bouquet; reveals notes of white flower, ripe nectarine, lychee and lemongrass.”

My first sip thoughts were: WOW – so bright, so smooth. second sip found a floral note with an acidic taste. It coated my tounge slightly. I’m not sure I could pull out lychee because I have never had one – hmmmmm! I did get floral and lemongrass.

Wine and Food

I paired it with a recipie from Ina Garten of the Food Network; Roasted Vegetable Soup with Brioche Croutons (and I added a little shredded parmesan cheese). Both the soup and the wine were excellent! The light, bright acidic wine was a nice foil to the full body of the roasted veggies, of course, it was perfect with the Brioche and Cheese!

I would buy this wine again, we have some Sauvignon Blanc drinkers in the crowd. I hope you enjoyed my wine review – Payadores. If you want to try this wine, or give a great gift to your favorite wine lover, check out Wine of the Month Club!

Lost in the Journey

Sandi