Winey Tasting Notes: Blue Fin Wine & Why The Winey Hubby Was In The Doghouse

Let me start by saying that I love The Winey Hubby. He’s a great guy, an awesome dad, a good friend…but when it comes to certain, um, circumstances, let’s just say there is a definite deficit in his character.

Without being too graphic (although if you have children, you’ll get my meaning easily), let’s just say that when certain areas of our children’s anatomies have reacted negatively to a virus or tummy issues over the years, the guy is a big CHICKEN. This is especially true when the Winey Children got sick in the middle of the night. (“Um, I’ll go start the washing machine, you take over up here.”) Or when the diaper was…OK, you get the idea, right? Oh wait, let me just add that he tends to get sympathetically barfy, no matter which end of the child was affected. Not a big help there.

Chloe

But like I said, he’s a great guy, so we kept him around. And then we got a dog. Now, you might think that a canine addition to a household is no big deal. But The Hubby had never had a dog until he was 40+ years old. I’m not sure there were even goldfish when he was growing up. That’s not to say he didn’t love our Chloe as much as the rest of us. She is an amazing little doggie. But, I refer  you back to the second paragraph of this post. Just replace the word children with dog and you will get my idea of the kind of help I received in housebreaking.


Rory

Nine years went by and we decided that Chloe needed a sister. We didn’t really want her to be an only dog, after all, and the Winey Children were growing up and getting their own lives…so just a few weeks ago we welcomed Rory into the family. 

Typical puppy that she is, Rory was a little upset the first few nights home. She cried when we tucked her into her crate at bedtime. I guess it got to be a bit too much for the Hubby on her second night here, so he got up, took Rory and went to sleep in the guest bedroom with her. And Rory did appreciate it..she calmed down and slept peacefully. At least until….hold on, let me give you some background here: I wake up early to get the Winey Daughter off to school. It is a full 2 hours before the Winey Hubby usually rouses himself to get ready for the day. On this day, though, shortly after I got up, the Hubby brought Rory downstairs, mumbled something about her needing to go out, and went back upstairs. No biggie. I took the doggies out, romped with them a bit, got the girl off to school and then went upstairs to get ready to go walking with my girlfriend. That was when I noticed that there was an odd….odor…coming from the guest room. And lo and behold, guess what Rory had done ON THE QUILT sometime early in the morning (Both. Okay, there I told you). But…did the Winey Hubby clean it up, or even WARN me that there was a smelly little problem? Nope. He just brought the dog down and trotted off to our bed without even warning me that the queen sized quilt was going to need fumigating. This resulted in his being called an insulting name and being hit with a pillow while he still slept. Before leaving for my walk, I left him this note: “Husbands who leave dog presents for their wives to discover at some later point owe said wife some really good wine, as well as the choice of movie viewing for that evening.” I thought that was fair. Very fair. Cause I really didn’t smack him with the pillow all THAT hard.

So Winey Hubby dutifully (he’s not dummy, after all) made his way to Trader Joe’s before he headed home. And being the frugal kind of guy that he is, he decided to buy two bottles of wine, because they were so cheap! So home came a bottle of Blue Fin Petite Sirah (2011, 12.5%, Napa) and a bottle of Blue Fin Chardonnay (2010, 12.5%, Napa). Each bottle was $4.99.



Ick

And yes, they were a bargain. They are part of the Bronco Wine Company family of wines (the most famous of which is Charles Shaw, aka Two Buck Chuck) that are proprietary to TJ’s. I started that evening with the Petite Sirah. It was a pretty maroon color that gave off a bouquet of black berry jam. And that’s where it all stopped. The taste absolutely did not live up to that bouquet. What little I could taste was more of a warm, earthy taste with a bit of fruit that disappeared as soon as it hit my mouth. It finished very dry and tannic. Well, not exactly what you’d hope for after having to earn the bottle of wine the way I did, huh? See my caption at the left and I believe you will gain a true insight to whether or not I’d buy this again.



A keeper!

A few nights later I cracked open the Chardonnay. It was a pale straw gold color with aromas of lime, melon and some faint oak. It tasted of pears and warm oak and a touch of cinnamon and finished with a mellow oakey pear taste. Now we’re talking!! This was a $4.99 bottle of Chardonnay that was rich and flavorful – not to big and buttery, not too fruity – the perfect balance. The Winey Hubby was out of the doghouse! I’m adding it to my TJ’s list of wines to keep buying (yes, along with Two Buck…I love that stuff).

Woof.

Cheers!