Win(e)d Down Weekends

As I talk more and more to people I know around me about my blog (begging them to read it and like it), they always ask me if I am blogging about wine.  I am a wine steward by trade and run a very large wine shop/specialty foods.  I talk about food and wine lifestyle all day with women who are on a budget, have a very large budget and those who just want to make daily life more pleasant.  The blog itself actually grew out of  my own need to make things more beautiful and adapt to my own surroundings all the things I was learning as I traveled.  Still it never occurred to me to actually write about food and wine. 

My weekend starts on Saturday not Friday, it consists of Sunday and Monday off.  My husband, Scott and I usually begin the weekend late, around 9:30, when he gets off.  He also works in the industry by the way. We get a bottle, grab some cheese and camp out on one of our two porches.  These are the stories our customers love to hear...so I decided to start Win(e)d Down Weekends as a feature.  Hope you like it.

What do you do with half a cantalope, one third of a herb cheese ball, one goat cheese log, half a cup of golden raisins,

a packet of honey, and half a box of water crackers.  You make a cheese board, of course.  The cheese ball no longer really looked like a cheese ball, I cut it into slices after cleaning up the sides a bit.  I sliced the cantalope in half inch slices and laid them beside the cheese ball.  I drizzled the goat cheese log with the honey packet and dropped the raisins on top and beside.  i finished off the cheese course with the half a box of crackers on the side.  Presentation is a large part of what makes evenings fun, so I put the plate on a charger.  If you can ever find a charger at a sale, flea market or just a great price at Hobby Lobby...you need at least one.

I chose Relax Cool Red for the first article because it is an easy wine.  The alcohol is 10% by volume.  Here is a handy tip when purchasing wine: somewhere on the label (this one happens to be on the back) it is going to tell you what the  ALC. BY VOL is.  Relax is only 10%, which is on the lower side these days.  If the bottle says 12 and above the wine will be very dry.  The higher the number, the drier the wine.  10%-11% are "off dry" or just beginning to be sweet.  9% and lower is sweet. 

Relax also has very few tannins.  This is the agent in wine that gives it the power to age, the thing that sometimes makes you pucker or feel like you just pulled a napkin out of your mouth.  The feel of the wine, mouthfeel, is light and easy.  Think water instead of milk as far as weight in your mouth.  This is a great red to chill.  We live in hotter than hot Texas and not much gets drunk here at room temperature...too prickly.

Let me warn you, Relax is a screw top wine.  It wasn't meant to age, so no cork necessary.  Have a great week end, Hat Project coming up Monday!