Sauvignon Blanc: Steelhead 2011 ($14)

"aggressively grassy"

This wine is a little over my normal price range -- it's fourteen dollars! -- so my expectations are high. Nevertheless, Steelhead's sauvignon blanc disappoints: it is too sour, and too dry. At this point, I wish I could say something knowledgeable, like, "Like most sauvignon blancs, its dryness is counterbalanced by a grape-ish finish," but I know actually nothing about wine. What is sauvignon blanc, anyway?

Wikipedia tells me that it is a green grape from France. Good! Also, "the flavor can range from aggressively grassy to sweetly tropical."

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THIS WINE IS.

IT IS "AGGRESSIVELY GRASSY"!!!!!!!

It's getting me tipsy, though. I've almost finished the bottle! Time to finish Arrested Development!

love,
Maia



VERDICT: Enh, you could get a better wine for cheaper, probably. Definitely not worth the fourteen bucks.

Pinot Grigio: Flipflop 2012 ($8)

A few weeks ago, my friend L and I went out to dinner to celebrate her college graduation. We chose a Thai restaurant that was BYOB; L said that she would bring some leftover wine that she wasn't planning on drinking. This was the wine:

"Drinkable."

The name of the manufacturer, as you can see, is "flipflop." Those are "Hawaiian"-patterned flipflops depicted on the label, because this brand is relaxed and refreshing. Please check out their website.

Just like the one in the picture, our bottle of wine had a yellow "Best Buy 2011" sticker from Wine Enthusiast Magazine, so we had very high hopes.

Before we tasted the wine, I realized that I didn't have anything to take notes on. I looked through my bag. The only thing I had was my planner, which had no blank pages at all. So, in order to preserve our thoughts, ideas, and feelings, I took notes in the planner's back pages. Specifically, my notes are scrawled on top of "Guide for Evaluating Web Sites," a handy guide to deciding whether or not you should use, say, "1001factsaboutdolphins.geocities.com" for your research paper.

So: the wine! L, confessing a bias towards white wine, because she "likes cold beverages," had a sip first. "Drinkable," she pronounced. According to my notes, I thought much the same: "bland in a good way," "not sour," "pleasant enough."

Our food came. We ate; we talked; we laughed; we talked about Taylor Swift's "22." Being in more of a beer mood that night, L declined any more of the wine, and focused on her beer, leaving me to the wine, all by myself. Eventually, I said, "I'm kind of tipsy."

"I don't mean to pressure you into drinking," she said.

This shocked me. "I don't think anyone has ever said that to me," I said. "Like literally. No one."

We were at the restaurant for three hours. At one point, the couple next to us moved tables. "Am I talking really loudly?" I asked.

"Whatever, you're saying a lot of really great things," L reassured me.

"You're so smart," I said.

"I am smart," L agreed. "I'm graduating."


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At the bottom of my notes, this quote (for I enclosed it in quotation marks) is written, with no attribution. I'm not sure who said it, or when, or why. But here it is:

"I'm sitting here with my arms crossed and holding this glass of wine and like, I don't know. I don't know."



VERDICT: Not too sour or two sweet. Buy!