Maybe I've been overthinking this red wine thing – thinking I needed to figure out which grape produced the sweetest red wine. If you've missed my quest, you can read more about it here and here. Looking like the novice I am, I spent maybe 20 minutes looking at nearly every bottle of wine in the grocery store the other day. I stumbled across one called "SWEET RED" by Sutter Home. That sounded perfect.
I flipped the bottle over and read this, "Sutter Home Family Vineyards offers this unique SWEET RED blend. We combine traditional California red varietals with a touch of sweet white wine to create a softer style red win that is voluptuously smooth, easy to drink and can be enjoyed chilled."
That is not false advertisement. It's the best red wine I've ever tasted. It isn't quite as good (sweet) as white zinfandel, but I can't imagine finding another red wine that comes this close. Granted, it's cheating a little since they added a touch of white wine to the mix, but if this is cheating, then so is drinking Coke Zero or Pepsi One.
And it passes one of the wine pansy tests – it comes with a cork, not a screw top lid. Although I have to admit, I have still not mastered the uncorking process.
A few years ago, I bought a friend a bottle of wine and he came over to enjoy it while we watched a movie. I was so unaccustomed to real wine that I wasn't prepared to open it. The corkscrew I had was from the 1970s and it probably belonged on the end of a pocketknife or a keychain more than anything.
So, we had to go to the grocery store to get a real corkscrew – the kind with the handle grips on the side that actually pulls the cork out of the bottle. I'm getting better at using it now, but I could still use some practice. Now that I have found a red wine I enjoy, I should be a pro at popping corkscrews soon.
