For all of my talk about not digging big-ass wines, I sure do seem to end up talking about a lot of “good” big-ass wines.
Take this past Christmas, for example.
We host some extended family every third Christmas or so, as part of a rotation that has us visiting Florida and Washington on the other years. And when we host Christmas, we cook a gourmet meat-and-potatoes feast in honor of a late grandmother, who succumbed to Alzheimer’s quite a few years ago but in her heyday apparently made a mean roast dinner.
The slow-roasted meat naturally gets me thinking about a big red, and for some reason, despite reservations, I find myself continually reaching for Mondavi Reserve wines for this holiday dinner thang. I mean, if Christmas dinner isn’t when you’re supposed to open up wines like these, then well the hell are you supposed to pop those corks?
I use the term “despite reservations” because, truth be told (don’t you hate that phrase, by the way? I mean, it’s not like I’ve been lying to you for years and am only now getting aroud to making statements with any veracity… ok, whatever…) I am always afraid that the Mondavi Reserve wines are going to burn me…