The Perfect Halloween Pairing

Looking to celebrate Halloween? Well your celebration wouldn't be complete without something sweet for the adults. Were talking wine!! Here are some of our favorites to help celebrate the holiday.

Spellbound was recently included in our Discovery Club. Spellbound is created by Rob Mondovi Jr in California. They are casual everyday wines that as they like to say "leave you spellbound." The Zinfadel that was included in our Discovery club, has a very strong sweet berry smell. It's pretty overwhelming when you smell it but in the end it leaves you with an oaky flavor. The half moon and spooky name makes it a perfect pairing for your spooky treats.

Another Zin that must be included in every Halloween event is 7 Deadly Zins. It's a 90 point wine and is under $15 so for a party its perfect - for your most romantic dinner not so much. This wine is blended from 7 Lodi growers in California. It's a bit of a sweeter Zin with a fruitier taste.

A Halloween night wouldn't be complete for wine lovers without something from the Vampire wines. The legend goes that these grapes are owned by actual vampires in Transylvania who decided to share the blood wine. And if the story doesn't entice you enough, the black bottle and spooky label will definitely add to the ambiance of your party. I also like that these wines are available in a variety of reds and whites, plenty of options to sink you fangs into.

Ghost pines is a great wine to add to your night for another under $15 bottle. Like Vampire wines they offer their wines in all varieties. I personally didn't love the Chardonnay Ghost pines it had more of an earthier taste then I enjoy, however I really enjoyed the Cabernet and the Merlot.

What a better way to complete your Halloween night then by giving a little "Poizin" to your guest? Make sure to include this zin from Armida Winery. Not only is is a great zin but the red etched poison symbol adds to the thrill. If that wasn't enough to scare you, maybe the coffin the bottle comes in will!

Wine Ratings - What Do Those Numbers Mean Anyway?

There are actually many wine rating scales. Some of the more common ones include "The Wine Advocate System," "The Wine Spectator," and the "Connoisseurs Guide to California Wine."

Typically one would think that the higher the rating the higher the cost of the wine, but that isn't always true. In fact there are many 90+ wines for under $20. However due to the fact that these wine ratings are based off of a taster, your personal pallet may not agree with the point amount its given. The best choice is to find a wine scorer who's taste run similar to yours.

At Wine of The Week we provide you with the rating given by "The Wine Advocate System." The Wine Advocate System is one of the most respected wine rating systems as well as one of the most widely known. This scale was developed by Robert Parker in The The Wine Advocate. The scale goes from 50 to 100 and awards color, appearance, aroma and bouquet, flavor and overall quality.

The ratings break down as follows:

96-100: An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase, and consume.

90 - 95: An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.

80 - 89: A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.

70 - 79: An average wine with little distinction except that it is a soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.

60 - 69: A below average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor, or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.

50 - 59: A wine deemed to be unacceptable.

Along with a number rating given by Robert Parker, he also includes extensive tasting notes on each of these wines. We will be bringing these to you when we feature our Dinner Table wine. These are always nice when you want to get ideas of the flavors, aroma's or grapes used in the wines.

Now here at Wine of The Week Club, we don't want to be the type of wine snobs that only depend on Robert Parker's likes. We are going to give you our 2 cents and trust us we won't be sending it if its no good!

On The Dinner Table

Last week on the dinner table we sent our members a value Chardonnay that has posted monster numbers on the Robert Parker's wine rating. The 2008 Russian River Valley Chard put out by Frei Brothers Reserve has earned its place on the prestigious Dinner Table write up.

I think it's smart for us to give you some context about the Frei Brother Winery background. In the late 1880's, an enterprising Swiss immigrant by the name of Andrew Frei gazed upon the rolling hills, gentle streams, and fertile soil of northern Sonoma and saw a wineglass full of opportunity. He wasn't the first to have had such a vision. In 1885, a gold miner named Charles Dunz traded in his pickaxe for a plow at the age of 70 and purchased 344 acres of prime real estate in Sonoma county. After four years of hard work clearing the land, Dunz had an impressive vineyard that boasted grape varieties such as Zinfandel, Mataro, and Riesling. However, Dunz' health went into decline. In 1890, he sold his holdings to Andrew Frei, helping to give birth to a winemaking tradition that is very much alive today.

The signature cooling maritime influences of the Russian River Valley serve to balance its warm days with cool, refreshing evenings and fog-cloaked mornings. This unique microclimate allows for the slow and even maturation of our fruit, developing distinct flavors in our wines which reflect this great Sonoma terroir. The challenging 2008 growing season began with unusually dry weather in late winter and spring with unexpected frost in late April. As the vines were beginning to bloom in May, an extended heat wave set a smaller crop than normal in the vineyards. However, the end of spring and the summer months were typically moderate and warm with few heat spikes, which provided perfect conditions for the ripening of our Chardonnay grapes. Harvest began for Frei Brothers earlier than usual in August and picking rapidly increased as a heat wave in early September caused wine grapes to quickly ripen. The weather cooled in late September and harvest was complete by the end of October with minimal challenges. Yields were lower than previous vintages, but the result was fruit of excellent quality with intensity and depth.

Please send your input of with your taste, smell, and dinner experiences via my email!

Judson Koehn
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In Short: It's a damn good Chard. Members we spoiled you last week!

• Point Average ~ 89/100
• Vintage ~ 2008
• Vineyard ~ Frei Brothers
• Country of Origin ~ United States
• Appellation ~Russian River Valley
• Titratable Acidity: ~ 0.51
• Residual Sugar ~ 0.4
• pH ~ 3.4
• Alcohol Level ~ 13.78
  

What Is Wine of The Week?

Our Mission- “Make every week WOW for our members.”

We here at Wine of the Week are a bunch of Wine Nuts. In early 2008 I received a Wine of the Month membership from a great friend of mine. I received the first shipment and it was a lot of fun to receive, discover and taste some fairly unique wines. This was great but it left me wanting more and I had to wait another 4 weeks before the next shipment would arrive. I knew what I had to do; I needed to create a weekly wine club so customers can enjoy a wine discovery every week. In 2009 we gave birth to Wine of the Week and as they say “The rest is History.” Let us make every week WOW for you or whomever you gift this unique membership to.

What the Hell do we know about choosing wines?

As I mentioned earlier, we are all Wine Nuts and we love Wine. Wineries send us thousands of samples (thanks) and we have the really tough job of tasting everyone. We have to admit that if you catch us after 3pm on any given day, we are probably 3 sheets to the wind (dirty job, but someone has to do it). Since we taste every wine, we have great confidence that we will only send out exquisite and tasty wines. We have so many different wines to choose from that we generally discard 22 sampled bottles for every 1 bottle that we choose to send to our members. Wineries trip over themselves to work with us since our membership base exposes their product to thousands of proud members of Wine of the Week. So every week, Wine of the Week will uncork a sampling of sweet new wines for our members, Guaranteed.

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