Wine

A year ago…

A year ago, today, we started this blog with a review on one of our travel experiences in Romania. That was the first blog post and our first attempt at putting together a blog/diary of our life. This blog has become so much more than that for us in this past year, it is our go-to place when we want to look back on our experiences, on the way we (gracefully) age and it is a good reminder that life is wonderful, especially in those ‘down’ moments – everyone has those. It also motivates us to stay in shape, eat healthy and it forces us to actively review places and write down memories from our trips while also pinpointing some of our best experiences both abroad as well as in Romania.

Nowadays, looking back on our old posts, I realized that if we did not have this blog, there was no chance in hell we would’ve took so many photos throughout the pregnancy, nor would I have written down in such detail my personal feelings that I experienced during this amazing time.
Today we decided to celebrate by not putting together a slideshow of our past year, but by sharing with you (and also marking on our calendar) the first swimming experience (in our bath tub) baby-Leia had this Friday (the 17th of March). Since I am on active mommy watch, I will not spend more time writing about it but I will just let you enjoy our home-made video of Leia.

Yes, life changes a lot during one year, this blog helped us fully appreciate just how much, and we have come to the conclusion that our lives really evolved for the better and there is only going up from this point on. I truly hope that you enjoyed this past year with us and we hope that there will be many more years to come for our little blog!
Happy Birthday evenlymatched.eu!!!
L.

March 19, 2017

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Epic!

Oh, wine… Long time, no see! True, it should be illegal to talk about wine on a Tuesday, but it’s been two weeks (too long) since our last wine review. Let’s put it this way, the upside of talking about wine on a Tuesday is that it gives you enough time to find the said wine if you want to try it, until Friday! The way I see it, it’s a win-win situation!
This time we’ll travel towards the Moldavian region of the country, distancing ourselves from our favorite wine region, Transylvania. We are not leaving the country this time!

The wine I’m going to write about today comes from Gramma winery and it’s part of a wine trilogy released in 2012. This one is called Epic, it’s a white, dry wine that is made up of three different grape types (Feteasca Alba – 20%, Feteasca Regala – 20% and Aligote – 60%). As the name prepares you, this is an Epic wine!
Once poured into the glass, you see the distinct light green-yellow colour that tells you a bit about its freshness. This one was the second wine, so far, that upon smelling it, made me immediately think about Tuscany for some reason. It smells like a combo of autumn ripe fruits such as apples, pears and grapes, with a few faint floral notes of lilac and jasmine. The big surprise upon smelling it was the deep green olive hint, that probably being the reason my mind associated it with Tuscany.

Once I took a small sip of the clear wine, I immediately understood the complexity of it. The first thing you realize about this one is it’s pleasant silky, delicate texture with clear notes of melon. My nose wasn’t wrong when it felt the olive fragrance as the aftertaste is composed mainly of green olives, which is very surprising and pleasant for a clear white wine such as this one. This combo of taste and smell gives us, the consumers, a very complex and balanced experience that goes well with cheese and white meat.
Overall, this is a very good and sunny wine that will definitely incite your taste buds. This experience with Gramma wines made us want to try more of their wines and made us especially curious about the two other wines in the trilogy.

The interesting and appealing thing about Gramma wines is the way they choose to present their products. The etiquette design to be more specific. It’s always nice to see a product presentation a bit out of the box. Each different type of wine has a suggestive artful drawing on it that tells you a bit about the content. For example, with this wine, the feather on the etiquette was really suggestive about the silky, delicate taste we both discovered inside the bottle.
L.

June 14, 2016

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Austrian wonder!

I’ve thought long and hard about what to write about this wine, I’ve done my research and to be quite honest, I’m afraid this post might turn out like one of those Sunday posts with barely any text, but only a bunch of photos and some shopping information.

D found this gem of a wine a few months back and the guy at the wine shop warned him that this is really a very special Riesling, so we dicided to save it for a very special occasion. What better occasion is there other than your man’s birthday? None, I tell you, none! Once back from our late luch at Norma on Monday, we opened the ‘unicorn’ wine and our wine chart was changed forever. This is definately the best white wine we’ve ever drank. You absolutely have to try this one, especially if you are a wine lover!

The reason I was having second thoughts about writing a detailed description about it, is that you simply can’t put into words the great quality and the superb taste it has. And I am also afraid you are going to miss my point about having to try out this wine!
I’m talking about an Austrian wine and as much as we love Romanian wines, our top three wines are all Austrian. For some reason we both feel that this country gives to the world some of the best wines out there. However, this Rudi Pichler Riesling is out of this world good. True it is a wine from 2012 and currently you can barely find it anywhere, and true, it is a bit more expensive than other wines we’ve reviewed here, but it is worth both the search and the money!

We have come to the moment I was torn about in the begining of this post… Should I brag about all the research I’ve done on this Riesling or should I just URGE you to try it for youtself to get my point?
Not being in a hurry to finish this post, I am going to give a swift description about my experience with it. I’m not going to talk about the winery or the winemaker, just about the three essential consumer issues: colour, smell and taste. First thing I noticed about this wine when D pored it into the glass is the clear pale green-yellow colour that immediately tells you about its crispness and character. The frangarnce is also very impressive, at first you feel a mandarin smell which is uncharacteristic for a Riesling. Once I took a second sniff I was astounded that the mandarin fragrance was joined by peach notes and a faint floral bouquet. At this point, I couldn’t wait to have a sip. But you should never take that first sip in a hurry, you should let it linger and release all its flavours. From the first moment, I felt this was a full-bodied wine with a pronounced acidity that had subtle citrus notes. The aftertaste is fruity, making this wine one of the most complex Rieslings I’ve ever tried.

In order to not bore you and get my point across, I’m going to stop writing now and leave you with this:
THIS IS A MUST-TRY WHITE WINE! IT WILL CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION ON RIESLING WINES AND WHITE WINES IN GENERAL!

May 27, 2016

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Young summer!

We were really excited when our Liliac package arrived. Inside we found the three new varieties of Young Liliac, the summer edition wines. This year is the second year we’ve been enjoying these fresh ligh summer varieties. The main reason we both loved them so much last year is the fact that they are lighter (where alcohol is concerned) than regular wines, therefore you get tipsy later, on those long summer nights.

Let’s be clear on something, these three wines are nowhere close to other wines we’ve reviewed so far on this blog, but they are a lot cheaper too. I’m not saying they are not good, they are actually really good if you take into consideration the price point they’re at. You get some really shitty wines at the supermarket for the same amount of money, so why not go for these really good varieties. As earlier stated, we loved last year’s editions so we couldn’t wait to get started with this year’s editions.
The difference between this year and last year is that the winemakers combined two types of grapes for the white versions as opposed to last year when they only used one type, and they also released a rose wine. Just like last year, all of them have very summery names that prepare you from the beginning with what’s to expect from them: Fresh, Fruity and Light Rose. They did change the design of the bottles this year, each etiquette showing a sleeping bat in a relaxed environment, as opposed to their other etiquettes where the bat is shown in full flight.

The thing we’re not really crazy about where the summer editions are concerned is the screw-on top, that was also present last year which doesn’t really preserve the wine in the unlikely event where you don’t finish the bottle on the same day you opened it. Naturally, we never had that issue, but it migh occur to more resposible drinkers. These types of light summer wines were invented for people like my and D that find it hard to sleep during the hot nights and need a wine that can easily be digested by 5 a.m. in the morning. After trying all the three types, here are our conclusions:
1. Young Liliac Rose Light 2015

This was the wine we were really excited about as rose wines are the perfect compromise between D‘s love for red and my love for a good white. The pink bottle got me more excited that it got D simply put because it’s quite feminine with all the flowers on it. The truth is though, that the way a bottle looks is worthless as it’s the taste that matters most.Before actually getting to the taste part, there are other two important things to judge, the fragrance and the colour.

This one has a very pleasant salmon colour, though judging by the alcohol volume (10,5%), I expected it to be a lot lighter in colour. I guess this one draws its intense colour from the Romanian type of red grape called ‘Feteasca Neagra’ (as much as I did my online research, I couldn’t find a proper transalation for this name, mainly because this type of grape can only be found in Romania). Looking at my glass, I couldn’t help but notice that the colour and the clarity of this wine is, simply put, beautiful. Fragarance-wise, even though online they say that it’s floral-fruity, my not-so-sensitive-nose (apparently) could only detect floral notes, rose notes to be more specific, but hey, we’re not experts, not by far, just mere consumers.
Moving on to the taste part. Considering the fact that this is a 9€ wine and that cheap rose wines (even some expensive ones) are usually very shitty, this was a very very nice surprise. It tastes crisp, with a light body and has a gentle acidity, which is to be expected with any rose. I honestly felt that I was drinking way more expensive wine than I actually was.

We enjoyed our rose alongside our Monday lamb dinner, and it complemented it nicely, even though you’re supposed to enjoy it with salads. Like any other white or rose, this one is recommended to be served at 10 degrees C to fully feel the frangrance and taste. Overall, this was a very nice surprise.

2. Young Liliac Fresh 2015

This was the one I was most excited and anxious to taste as I absolutely loved last year’s version. I would say that I liked it more than some other way more expensive white wines and it was a real bummer when I realised it was out of stock. This one has a slighly more elevated alcohol level (12,5%), but still less than a normal white, which makes it perfect for week nights. This year, the Fresh version is a combo between Sauvignon Blanc and ‘Feteasca Alba’ (same grape as for the Rose, but the white version).

The colour is the one that caught my eye last year, and it is virtually the same this year, it’s a clear yellow with strong green undertones. The citrus smell indicates a strong crispness, but you can also sense a hint of fresh grass smell. As I couldn’t wait anymore to analyze it, I took a sip and was again, pleasantly surprised. It’s a bit crisper than last year, which in my book is great. As opposed to the rose, this one has high acidity levels, so if you’re our opposite, and hate sparkling wine, than this one isn’t for you. But, hey, who doesn’t like/need a little sparkle in their life?

What made me love this one more than the one from last year is that it leaves behind a strong lemon taste (last year it was milder). As with any crisp white, this one is recommended to be enjoyed alongside mature cheeses (there, you have it, that’s why I love crisp wines!) and in order for the experience to be perfect, it should be served at 10 degrees C.

3. Young Liliac Fruity 2015

Out of last year’s versions, this one was my least favourite, so I was really curious to see if any good changes had been made. Despite our curiosity, we still left this bottle for last. For this year’s version, Liliac winemakers combined Sauvignon Blanc grapes with Traminer grapes, and to our satisfaction, it’s better because you can really feel the Traminer.

Starting again with the visual part, this one, as opposed to the Fresh version, is straw-yellow with orange undertones. Upon smelling it, I sensed a powerful fruity aroma with obvious hints of peach. Even before tasting it we knew that this was a way sweeter wine than the other two, and after taking a sip we knew that for a fact. It’s definately not as crisp and dry as the other two. It is however a very well balanced wine, not as sparkly as the other two. Being a bit sweeter, it goes well served with white meat or pasta. It should be served at 10 degrees C, but because it’s not as dry as what we normally drink, we cooled it at 5 degrees C.

Overall, this year’s version is a definite improvement from last year’s version, and we recommend it if you’re the type that doesn’t enjoy really dry wines.

Overall impressions:
We both feel that these new summer editions are better than last year’s versions and the Light Rose was a very nice surprise. Even though D and I have slightly different preferences when it comes to wines, where these three are concerned, we came up with the same rankings, surprisingly:
1. Young Liliac Fresh 2015
2. Young Liliac Light Rose 2015
3. Young Liliac Fruity 2015

Since last year these wines literally dissapeared off the shelves, if you want to give them a try, you should stock up after you’ve found your favorite one. We allready have quite a few bottles of our number one pick and several of our second contender, just to be on the safe side for our summer nights.

No matter which one you decide is the best one, please enjoy responsibly and if you have a bit of time, I’d love to hear which one was you favourite.
L.

May 19, 2016

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Getting fat in Madrid…2KGs!

This is the second part of our fattening experience in Madrid. Without further rambling, here’s the rest of the post.

LA COCINA DE SAN ANTON

Monday was the day D made us change our originally set course at some point in the day, and lucky for us he did as we stumbled upon San Anton Market. On the rooftop we discovered the amazing La Cocina de San Anton that won our hearts over at first glance with it’s shabby-chic decor. This place is tricky to find as you have to go up some back stairs that we luckily found because we were very hungry and we saw people on the roof from outside. Because we had that primal hunger feeling, we decided to go all the way with our dinner and went for three courses: on shared and the other two individual. The great thing about this place was that they served Sangria de Cava as well which made us very happy. We promise, again, that we are not alcoholics, and even though denial is the usual way these things go, we never go past one bottle per dinner.

As an appetiser we got the Fresh Market Cheese Plate which got me really excited (see photos!) as it was the first time I was trying six different types of Spanish cheese. I have to say that I loved every single one of them! As a main, I decided (this was a hard decision, just check their online menu) on the Tomato Panini with Fresh Basil and Burrata (yeah, I know I am a cheese addict) which came in a very unexpected form. I was actually expecting some sort of combo between diced tomatoes and burrata cheese with some panini bread on the side, but instead, it came on a hot plate and the waiter cut it in front of me as the burrata needed to get just the right amount of warm before it was cut and dispensed all over the baked panini. Needless to say at this point that besides the fact that I love cheese, I just love, love, love any type of warm-cheese dish. D got the veal with some sort of cooked cabbage and judging by the fact that he was quiet the entire time he ate despite the fact that we had already had an appetiser, made me jump to the conclusion that it was absolutely delicious and it wasn’t just the hunger silencing him.

The dessert was really something special. We decided on two different desserts: cheesecake and the “Happy Ending” dessert. On the Cheesecake – this was definitely the best Cheesecake either of us ever had, and we are both very picky when it comes to Cheesecake, as even though the popular belief is that it’s very hard to ruin a cheesecake, it’s equally hard to do a magnificent one. This one was magnificent! The “Happy Ending” was really something else. Midpoint after D started eating it (we’re taking turns and each of us eats half of the dessert), he started laughing uncontrollably, which immediately made me think about the ‘funny-cupcakes’ from Amsterdam. As he didn’t want to tell me under no circumstances why he was laughing, I had to try it myself. Two bites in and I was laughing like a mad woman (I have a loud lough) and it wasn’t because of any ‘funny-business’, the dessert had crispy popping chocolate balls in it that just kept popping long after you’ve swallowed them and basically it felt like someone was was tickling you inside your ear. This is in now way annoying and if you factor in the fact that the popping chocolate balls come submerged in home-made vanilla sauce with a warm brownie on the side, you realise why I say that this is the most awesome dessert ever!

Our whole meal, that came very fast (seems this is a regular thing in Madrid – other countries should learn from that) and included and appetiser, two mains and two desserts, plus a large Sangria de Cava, cost about 80E, which is very good by any European standard.

TOMMY MEL’S DINER

On our last day in Madrid we really wanted to do a re-dinner at Cocina de San Anton (yes, we loved it that much!), but since we spent most of the day at Mutua Madrid Open, when dinner-time came, we rather felt like eating somewhere close to our hotel as all we really waned was a quick dinner and then to start packing for our leave (early flight). On our way from the Metro station we found this classic 60’s American diner that looked absolutely too good to miss while there.

This was a reminder of why we never really eat twice at the same restaurant when we’re abroad. This place was just lovely! Starting with the impeccably in-theme interior design and ending with the very friendly waiter/bartender that barely spoke two words in English. Unfortunately for us they didn’t serve Sangria de Cava. But just like any unfortunate thing tends to become immediately fortunate, they did serve another typical Spanish drink that we didn’t taste up to that point: Tinto de Berano. This is basically red wine combined with some sort of soda drink and some fruits, or at least that was what we managed to understand from our non-English talking friend. But I bet you there are some secret ingredients to it as I am sure that if I mix those exact ingredients, my final product won’t be half as good as this one was.

As per usual, I opted for a salad, a Caprese Salad to be more specific, that turned out to be more surprising than it sounds as it had tomato jam in it. In my ignorance, I had no idea that one could make Tomato jam, even tough I’m way past the point when a person is stupid enough to not know that a tomato is a fruit. It just never occurred to me that you can make jam out of them, and it definitely never occurred to me that it could taste this amazing in a salad. We also shared a plate of bacon and cheese potatoes and D settled for ordering three types of burritos which I can’t really remember what they were called in the menu but that course did have a very funny name. Needless to say that he was extremely satisfied with his pick. Since we were in an American diner eating Spanish food and drinking Spanish specialities, we decided to end our dinner with an all-American dessert: Pancakes. I admit that we decided on dessert fully for blog-purposes as we were already full by the time we finished our mains.

Taking into consideration that we ate a lot and drank a lot and the food came really quick (but that seems to be something normal in Madrid), this dinner was very cheap. We even felt like checking the bill twice as we couldn’t believe that all we ate and drank cost about 40E (tip included).

This was basically our food incursion in Madrid, and if we had to make a top five of the restaurants, I think it would look a bit like this:

CAPUCCINO
La Cocina de San Anton
Tommy Mel’s Diner
VIPS
Hard Rock Cafe (just based on the fact that we’ve eaten at HRC hundreds of times)

Also, if you’re looking for a nice place to drink a good Sangria in Madrid, we’d recommend any of the small terraces in the Chueca area (the featured images are from our Sangria breaks there).

This concludes the food series from Madrid and also ends all our posts from our vacation in this beautiful city. I hope we didn’t bore you too much with all the details and also, I hope that at some point you will find them useful.

May 14, 2016

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Getting fat in Madrid… 1 KG!

These two posts are about us trying to explain ourselves…mainly for the extra amount of fat we came back with from our Spanish adventure. Initially I wanted to only do a single post on the food, but to be honest, it would’ve ended up missing lots of details as I am really trying to keep my word count in check. I hope that by the end of these fattening series posts you will understand why we probably won’t expose perfectly toned bodies at our first pool party… But maybe we’ll be lucky enough to not have pool-appropriate weather until we’ll be back on track with our body-fat percentage!

First of all, aside for the tapas, I found Madrid food to be more to my taste than the food I ate in Barcelona. But that might only be me, because Barcelona’s food is mostly based on sea creatures, which I can’t stand, while in Madrid I found a wide variety of all the things I love: cheese, salads, cakes.

We ate at six different places during our stay there, though we didn’t take any pics of the first place we had dinner mainly because D left the camera at the hotel (yes, I’m talking about the first day we got there). It wasn’t a notable place anyway, as the food was plain at best. This terrace was located in Plaza Mayor, and we each had a paella that wasn’t taste-bud amazing for any of us. This just goes to prove that one should not dine in tourist-popular locations when visiting a big city.

Let’s just cut the small talk and get down to analysing all the other five places we ate. Most days we only ate dinner at about 6:30 in the evening, mostly because we don’t really eat late when we’re at home either so why change that. The complicated thing about that is that in Madrid most restaurants tend to serve dinner at about 8:30-9:00 p.m. We didn’t get discouraged by that and found some beautifully delicious locations for those of you that like an early dinner just like us.

After purposely ignoring our first dinner in Madrid, let’s start with the first photo-documented day:

VIPS

Here we had our one and only proper (if you only take into consideration the time) lunch. After wondering the alleys of Buen Retiro Park for about six hours at 17 degrees, all we really wanted was to find a nice terrace to have a green tea break. So we stopped at Vips and after a thorough analysis of the menu, we decided to have a quick bite as well. While D was at the bathroom (another problem that Madrid has: no public bathrooms anywhere!), I decided on us being healthy and opted for two things for both of us from the Fitness menu. I had a salad (can’t remember what it was called) and for D I chose the lean veal with sautéed green beans. He seemed satisfied with my choices when he found out that we were having lunch as well as a hot cup of green tea and patiently waited for our food.

To my surprise, the food came really quick despite the fact that the terrace was full, and that, in my book that is mandatory for any restaurant that gets praising from me as I hate waiting for food for too long. I become all cranky! At first glance the food looked really appealing and after we both tasted it we decided that this place needs to be recommended to other people as well. For the first time in my adult life I wasn’t able to finish a salad. Yes, it was that big! I have no idea how it got to be on the Fitness menu, but D had to eat a third as I was way beyond full.

This specific Vips (as you can find numerous Vips in Madrid) is located near the Westin Hotel at Fuente de Neptuno. I wouldn’t say this is an expensive food option, although it’s not on the cheap side either, as our entire lunch came at about 50E. Overall, if you’re in the area, you should really give this place a try. I can’t really say that this one is a must-go-to place as we only had one course which in all honesty was very good.

HARD ROCK CAFE

That evening, after yet another few hours spent exploring the streets, we found Hard Rock Cafe. We do admit that we are biased when it comes to HRC, therefore, to compensate, we are going to put it last on our must-eat places from Madrid. I say we are biased because we always eat at HRC when we’re away and D always has the Local Burger. On top of all that, we spent last Christmas at Hard Rock Hotel&Casino in Punta Cana. Maybe one day we’ll do a top on HRC’s Local burgers.

D obviously had the above mentioned burger, while I had the vegetable (shocker!) fajita. Now I kid you not when I say that I am the type of person that eats their pizza with a fork and knife, so imagine my surprise when my food came and I realised that I had to assembly it myself. I do admit the playing the shawarma-guy role was a lot of fun and the food was incredibly good. To accompany our dinner, we also had a glass of white Spanish wine, which, to be honest, didn’t really impress us at all.

In the end, since we were quite full, we decided on sharing a dessert. When our waitress came, we were almost sure that a mistake had been made as the thing was enormous! As you can see in the photo, D used me for scale. We had to sacrifice ourselves and we managed to finish it and it was really really good.

I’d say that the check wasn’t in anyway a surprise, HRC keeping it’s prices globally, so however much you pay at your local HRC, that’s exactly how much you are going to pay no matter where you are.

CAPPUCCIONO

The following two days we had dinner at Cappuccino because, yes, the food was that good! We hardly ever do that when we are abroad as we are always on the lookout for new and exciting restaurants, but every once in a while, a place like this one comes along and we are basically hooked. We only did this one more time, in January in Ischgl, but that is a story for another post.

First and most important of all, this was the first place in Madrid where we found Sangria de Cava, our favourite Spanish drink ever since we visited Barcelona, and to top it all, this was the best we’ve ever tried. You can say that they got us hooked on the booze and you wouldn’t be wrong. Until the food came, that is…

On Saturday I ordered the kale salad and it was absolutely amazing. I’m not the biggest kale fan, so when I find something that’s that delicious and contains mostly this superfood, I tend to be very excited and willing to try everything on the menu. Surprisingly D ordered the Pepperoni Pizza. Surprising because he always orders either steak or burger, almost never pizza. Since I’m a big pizza fan myself, I couldn’t resist and took a bite and you could actually feel the great quality of all the ingredients used. It was a pleasure for my taste buds and D agreed completely! Since we were having such a lovely evening we decided to try some desserts as well: the Banofee and the Apple pie. Those two desserts got me obsessed with the idea of coming back there the following day, and got D to being obsessed with trying their in-house made burger.

Since I’m not the type of cruel person to deny my man his burger, we came back the next day and even before we took our seats we ordered the usual Sangria de Cava. D ordered his burger which actually came in the form of two mini-burgers, that honestly were the best burgers he’s ever had in his life, and he’s had quite a few. I second that opinion as I couldn’t stop drooling over his burgers once I got a bite and tasted their heavenly aroma. I think it must be the spices the cook puts in the meat and the sauces he makes for these burgers. Either way, this is definitely a must-try in Madrid.I ordered the Mozzarella di Buffala salad, which was extremely good, just like the Kale salad from the day before. At the end, we both shared a Carrot cake, that quite probably is the best Carrot cake we’ve ever had.

I loved this place because, besides the extraordinary food, had a magnificent decor designed by Jaques Grange. You can find this place quite easily, as it’s located at Puerta de Alcala. Both times we ate there, the price was barely the same, around 90E, but it’s worth every single cent. The staff is very friendly and well-trained, and the food comes very fast.

Since I don’t really want to make this post too long, I’m going to stop rambling now and tell you about the other two amazing restaurants from Madrid in another upcoming post.

May 12, 2016

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Meanwhile On our Instagram Accounts and Facebook

Yes, we know we haven’t been very active during our Madrid vacation on the blog, but we have been very active with live photos of what was happening on both our Instagram accounts (@lavinia.bodu and @teodor_bodu) and on our Facebook page (facebook.com/evenlymatchedblog/).

Here are all the photos we’ve uploaded during the last week. We hope you enjoy them until our first official post on Madrid will be done and up online (hopefully tomorrow).

As you can see we had a blast in Madrid and we really needed this time away. As we took about 2000 photos in the five days we spent there (first and last day doesn’t count), we’ll probably have a whole week dedicated to Madrid, so this is just a trailer of what is to come next on the blog.

May 5, 2016

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Finally…

We finally review a rose wine! As previous said, we do have a lot of rose wines that we love, so choosing the first one to blog about was pretty hard. So hard actually, that throughout the entire week we organised a rose-wine contest, and for the purpose of keeping the integrity of the wine posts, we had to drink a different bottle of rose each evening. It was a hard task, but somebody had to do it! We finally chose our absolute favourite, and shocking as it is, this is not a Romanian wine, but an Austrian one!

I’m talking about Kracher Rose. This is a typical Austrian rose, made out of Zweigelt grapes. I would say the first thing that struck me about this one is the freshness you feel once you take the first sip. It’s actually fresher than many whites I’ve tried and I loved the fact that it is a bit sparkly as well. This is definitely a summer wine!

The smell is quite intense for a rose, with hints of wild roses, strawberries and even wild cherries if you spend enough time smelling it. The colour, as you can see from the photos is very pleasant and clear, almost pastel, but you can figure out just by looking at it that this is quite aromatic for a rose wine.

It comes from the Burgerland area in Austria, which is a well-known winery area, located on the east side of the Neusiedl Lake. Apparently this area is almost always covered in a thick layer of fog, which I guess makes it such a good area for wines. This is definitely not our first Austrian wine, as we love them quite a lot, almost as much as Romanian wines. This rose is, for sure, our favourite rose and we recommend it with cheese (of course!) or with white meat.

This one is actually quite hard to find, being from 2012, and being such a good wine. You definitely won’t find it on the official site, but you can still find it lost in some small wine shops (like we did!).

We will review some other great roses in the near future, especially since we organised that drinking contest during which we did taste some really good wines. We hope you’ll enjoy this one as much as we enjoyed choosing it!

April 29, 2016

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Ruby…

Back to a very special red, the 2011 Anima Syrah. This one has no memory attached to it as we first drank it a few days ago. And boy, were we impressed! I mean, we were expecting this one to be a very good wine since it’s made by Aurelia Visinescu and just like all her wines, this one is also a limited edition, with only 14.204 bottles for sale. D bought it based on a hunch and my conclusion to this after taking a sip was that he should always trust his instinct. And we are talking a bout red wine and this is me writing it!

The very first thing you notice, before tasting it, is its rich ruby colour and then you feel the complex fragrance it dispenses. Just based on those two things you quickly realise this one is a special etiquette. Obviously, being a dry red wine, it’s crisp and rough, but a very good kind of rough! The first thing I felt at first sip was the rich spicy aroma, complemented by a subtle blackberry taste. The aftertaste is even more complex as it had a dark rich chocolate accent that lingered for a while. Once you get used to the spiciness of it you start detecting hints of vanilla. All that made me think that I’m dealing with a very complex and rich red that clearly moved to the top of my red wines list.

Surprisingly (for me!) this wine is not from the Transylvania area, but way closer to home (Bucharest), in the Dealu Mare area. It comes from a very small and exclusive winery, that only produces limited edition wines sold all over the world. The winemaker is the best known Romanian woman in this area of expertise, that decided to put all her knowledge and expertise into this little winery giving us some very complex wine bouquets. This one is made out of three types of Syrah grapes from France and one from California.

Syrah is D‘s favourite wine type and I know that every time he buys wine, we end up with at least two different etiquettes of Syrah.

This wine should be enjoyed at 18 degrees C alongside either red meat or cheese (YaY!). This one is quite a strong wine in a sense that it hits you right at the knees after one glass, but the great thing about it is that it doesn’t affect you upper body (no headaches whatsoever). Therefore you should consume it with caution.

All in all, I have a new favourite red! Yes, I know we should at some point review a rose wine and we will, especially since we do have a few favourite roses. Maybe we’ll do that next week.

April 22, 2016

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A bit of Sauvignon…

Since alcoholic weekend is here (aren’t they all alcoholic?) we prepared another good wine to try out. We first tasted this wine a couple of summers ago and both of us were pleasantly surprised by it. I personally prefer Chardonnay anytime to a Sauvignon Blanc as in my opinion the latter is less crisp (yup, the crispiness again). This one however is really really good.

Unlike the usual Sauvignon Blanc, and I’m not talking about cheap supermarket wines, this one from Liliac has a fresh-fruity smell that almost prepares you for its crisp character. If you have a really sensitive nose you can almost feel hints on elderflower in it. Once you taste it, the first surprising thing about it is the acidity of the wine, which is really strong for this type of wine, in which case, if you don’t really like frizzy wines you should skip this one. Since we tried it on a hot summer wine, this aspect was a very nice surprise. Taste-wise it’s definitely not as crisp as a good Chardonnay, but that being my choice of wine one (D) could argue that I’m biased, but this is definitely and without any doubt better than any other Sauvignon Blanc I’ve ever tried. I’d say the taste at first is tropical, but it does leave a long citric aftertaste which I think is the reason why I like it so much. It clearly has a very interesting bouquet. It reminds me of a Tuscan wine I tried 10 years ago (yes, before the D-era).

Again, this is a wine from Transylvania, northern Transylvania actually, this being an area that has a long-long history of winemaking. This winery has such good wines partly thanks to their winemaker, an Austrian, Rudolf Kirzan.

It is recommended that you chill this wine at 10 degrees C, just like any other good white, and according to their suggestion, you should enjoy it alongside Mediterranean (hence my Tuscan reminder) and Asian food. As you can see, I don’t really value their opinion, and we had it with a cheese plate, partially because I was in charge of dinner, and when I’m in charge, we eat cheese.

In my personal opinion the 2013 version was a bit better (it’s the one we originally tried), but apparently 2013 was ‘wine year’ (if wine lovers would have a horoscope of their own). Unfortunately, you can’t find the 2014 online either, but you can find it, like we did, in specialised wine stores. It always seems like Liliac wines run off the shelves.

Browsing through their site I noticed that they’ve released the Summer versions, Young Fresh, Young Fruity and the new Young Rose (they didn’t have a rose version last year) so I immediately called D to order them, as last year’s Young versions were really really good and they were out of stock within a month, so I suggest you start ordering as even though this is a light wine for summer, you won’t find it in store by summer. This just goes to prove the mastery of their wine maker, he can come up with a very good and very affordable (silly affordable for the quality you get, but I guess that’s how they keep us hooked on their wines) wine each year.