Winey Tasting Notes: Celebrating Little Victories with a Red Splash

They say that it’s the little things in life that count. Sure, there are big epic moments in all of our lives, but when you think about it, the little moments are the ones that add up to be bulk of our experiences. So when you have a few little victories in one day, you look back on them as being a pretty big deal. Such was the case with me about a week ago.

It started out with a simple request from the Winey Daughter. She needed to replace her favorite black jeans (the old ones were about ready to give up their life for a higher cause…which I gathered was cut-off shorts). The store where this particular brand was sold happened to be about a minute from The Winey House up here in Ohio (not at all close to campus in North Carolina) and I also happened to be in possession of a coupon for the store. So of course, I took one for the Winey team and went shopping for her. While I was at the shopping center I just happened to walk by my one of my favorite stores in the outlet mall (yes, we live just north of an outlet mall…and our town is very small and quaint and yet we have an outlet mall. Can you say “best of both worlds”?).  I can.

And in that store, there just happened to be quite the sale going on. And I found two – count ’em – two pair of  pants. Big deal, you say. Well, yes, it is. Because pants and I have a long and checkered history. I am rather tall, with a long torso. Not many pairs of pants are nice to me. They somehow think they need to be ankle pants when I don’t want them to be. Plus, let’s face it…after a certain age when you find pants that hit you at the right length, don’t cut off circulation to the upper torso portion of your body and just look good, you celebrate. I gave a silent little cheer in the dressing room and pulled out my credit card.

If you are counting, that’s three pair of pants on sale for me (I count the coupon for The Winey Daughter’s as being on sale). And later on that night, I uncorked what turned out to be another little victory…in the form of a bottle of red wine.

This was a bottle of Red Splash (2011, 13.3%, California). I had found it in the “best under $10” section of my favorite wine store. Yes, I said “under $10”. And it was a red blend. As a rule, I love red blends. So, hoping for one more victory that day, I opened the bottle.

Red Splash is a dark garnet color, with a rusty red tint around the edges. The nose is full of cherry, chocolate and a touch of earth and dark green herbs. The taste starts out with black cherry and mocha (one of my all time favorite taste combos!). Then the dark herbs kick in at the end and the finish has a tiny hint of sunny warmth in it. It fells silky and smooth, like a dark red silk ribbon. Yes, we have a victory here, Winey Folks!

My fourth victory for the day. Taken individually, the victories were not earth shattering or life changing. But they were victories and when you add them all together, you wind up with a big victory of a day. And you go to bed with a smile on your face and the taste of some great wine on your lips!

Cheers!