See? I'm not timely. [Alternate Title] The journey begins.
Time to drink finds its way into my schedule. Writing about it is another story.
My first wine purchases of this great adventure were made at the most elegant liquor shop in the world: Walmart. This is what I bought.
The second wine is a 2010 bottle of Oak Leaf Shiraz. This bottle cost me $2.97 and was worth every penny. I enjoyed the entire bottle myself last night, and it made for a very pleasant floaty evening full of Facebook and Law & Order SVU. The company's site is down right now, but they are sold almost exclusively at WalMart and provide four wines currently - one for each season. Who knew? I thought only beer was seasonal, while wine was categorized by food pairings. This is why we're here folks.
The last bottle is a Lucky Duck Shiraz from 2009. I wasn't able to find a website for them just now, but will dig deeper when I "feature" this one. I do know it hales from Southeast Australia. The package says "Lucky You" - we shall see.
I tried the Beringer with my friend Lynn about three weeks ago. We are so not classy. For one, we could not figure out how to maneuver the de-corker. Is that even called a decorker? This is the site I went to to figure it out...afterwards. This is how it turned out for us.
We just kept pushing the screw into the cork. The concept of turning the screw completely flew over our heads. Maybe we thought you screwed afterwards? Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you: always screw first. 
At least the cork remained in tact while it took a nice swim in the wine. I haven't drank a lot of wine, but I don't think it's a good thing for it to be chewy.
I really enjoyed this wine, while Lynn gave it an "Okay". We didn't eat anything with it and had just about two glasses a piece. We drank it in a standard wine glass, which is my word for the ones you can buy for about a dollar at, you guessed it, Walmart. This is not the right way to choose your wine glass. Don't get me wrong, if all you're working with is a Solo Cup, drink boldly my friend! But if you have a choice, the shape and style of your glass truly can impact the experience.
The shape of the glass can determine what part of the tongue is first hit when you take a drink, how intense the aroma is, how flat your champagne ends up being, and so on. I'm not that great at APA citation, but here is a site that I thought broke things down understandably.
Some experts say your glass should be clear so that you can view the wine without obstruction. While wine is beautiful and fun to look at swirling around as you drink more of it, I don't really feel this is a necessity. A colored wine glass is fine, so long as the glass itself is relatively thin. Your wine glass should always have a big butt in proportion to the rest of the body (a Margarita glass would just be silly). The shape of the glass and whether or not the glass has a lip on it directs where the wine hits your mouth. A taller glass throws the wine to the back of the mouth (good for very sweet wines like your reds or dessert wines) and shorter glasses bring the wine to the front of your mouth (which is good for wine with subtle tastes that need help in the sweet department). As far as the stem is concerned, I think it really comes down to preference. There's a trend now for the tumbler wine glass, which I think was created by someone who kept breaking the stem off their wife's fine dinnerware. My main complaint with that is that I like my wine cold and you can smudge the glass up which makes it less pretty. But if you're a fast drinker or the drink is sitting on a table and not in the palm of your hand at a party, you should be good with a stemless option.
Oh, and don't fill your glass more than halfway full (or the widest part of the glass)! For one thing, it's essential to one's image at a party to swirl their wine around. If the glass is too full, you'll spill and if I'm around I'll point and laugh. More importantly, you have to keep space in the glass for the aroma. The way your nose feels when you take a drink of wine is just as important as the way your mouth feels. Unless you're just trying to get trashed.
All in all, I'd say the Beringer bottle was decent. I would drink it with most anything (I'm not quite ready to worry about food parings). Since it doesn't cost very much at all (less than $5), it would be a great wine to keep in stock for the every day meal or movie, but might be seen as a diss if you gave it as a gift.
Try it out and let me know what you think!
