I hope you had a nice holiday season and have made all of your resolutions. Maybe you have already broken some of them. I am completely changing my life in 2009. This year I have decided that I will no longer smoke my pipe and totally give up all cigars. I did not even have a final cigar to say good bye on December 31st. If you read my weekly article you can track my progress. At the bottom of each weekly article I write, look for my byline, "No pipe - No cigars!" Let's see how I do.
Jimmy D. Brown, of internet marketing fame, says that one way of making a resolution stick is to tell as many people as you can of the resolution and let them know of your progress - or lack thereof. Last month I had over 126,000 people visit the wine site. That's as many people as I can get unless you know of how I can tell more people to read the wine site.
My holiday season was the best ever. All of the editors at Bella Online got a chance to partake in a Secret Santa. I made up a list of a couple of ideas that I wanted for presents. I got all of those and a few extras. I was really surprised. The woman I gave a gift to, lives in Australia, and the woman who had my name lives in FL. It was a lot of fun. And like I said, I got more than I asked for.
Our family always asks my spouse, "What should we get Jim?" So this year, I made up a list of wines ranging in price from $7 to $40 and from Italy, Argentina, Chile, CA, MO, NM, France, Spain, Australia and a couple of other places. I got bottles from all over the globe and all different price ranges. I even got a couple of bottles I didn't ask for that I can't wait to try.
One of the bottles I got was:
Montes Classic Series
Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
D.O. Colchagua Valley, Chile
14.5% Alc by Vol
$7.99 on sale - it was $10.99
The winery is located in the heart of the Colchagua Valley, and according to the label on the bottle is one of the best winemaking areas in Chile. The name of the winery might look familiar since they have some wines that are on the Wine Spectator list that cost from $25 to $45. The wine bottle still had the label on it for $10.99 with the sale label on top. I asked people to leave the price label on the bottles so I could put the price in my article.
This wine was aged in American oak for six months. But it did not have a really heavy oaky taste or have a heavy tannin flavor. The color of this wine was a deep ruby red and the nose reminded me of mint with a slight hint of oak. The body was full and would probably hold up well for cellaring for maybe two or three years. Wine never lasts that long at my house. But I will see if they have any more on sale and see if I can keep three or four bottles until next year.
You can check out their website for more information.
Picture of the bottle can be found here:
Montes Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
Until next time, let me know what is on your mind, and how you are doing, O.K.?
Jim Fortune - Bella Online Wine Guy
"No pipe - No cigars as of January 8th, 2009!"
Say, How's your Italian?
