Back in the saddle with Napa Family Vineyards Cabernet 2010

Hey everyone!  With all the changes since September the Blog has been put on the back burner.  We welcomed our second child in early September and have been adjusting to having two little ones around the house.  My love of a good drink remains but those first few weeks were spent sleeping not catching up on a backlog of new wine and beer.

Bryant informing Will and I its time to get up. 

Due to the extra rugrat we are trying to eat in more often but still with style.  Carm is in the process of trying out some entertaining recipes that we can throw parties with, so if your in the Long Beach area we hope to have you over to the house soon.  To pair with the tasty experiment tonight we tried the Napa Family Vineyards (NFV) Cabernet Sauvignon.

NFV Cabernet Sauvignon 

The NFV is the Cab counterpart to the Meritage I featured several weeks back. This Cab is a medal winner in its own right winning awards at the Critics Challenge Intl. Wine Competition 2011 and Los Angeles International Wine Competition, 2011.  The NFV Cab is a young fruity Cabernet with a good nose and bright fruit flavors.  It is a full bodied classic Napa Cab so it is intense with the taste of dark berries.  Carm felt the alcohol content was a bit much but I thought it was tasty with that intensity.  The price point is about the same as its brand mate around $10~ which is a good value for a wine this good.

I Love CA and family reunions.

A while back the F&E rolled out a selection of California wines, due to the old blog and my being acquainted with one of the F&E people I got invited along for the tasting party.  At the tasting party I really enjoyed some of the higher end wines [which I will cover later] but felt that the I Heart California line ("IHC") was more of an afterthought.  I didn't care for the Chardonnay but the Cab was serviceable.  Carmen and I had fun that night and we even ran in to an old UC San Diego Classmate Annette Holland who runs a F&E food blog.  

Up to this weekend I had not thought a lot about the IHC but I was heading out to see my Japanese side of the family the annual Kumamoto Summer Picnic, and per the stereotype they don't tend to drink much.   My aunt said they had everything covered but I hate only bringing my teeth to a party.  At $4 per bottle I could afford to make a mistake so I picked up a couple of bottles of IHC Pinot Grigio to beat the summer heat and a IHC Cab for later.    

I think my prejudice towards Chardonnay skewed my view of this line.  I popped the cork and between my cousins and I was out of the first bottle within minutes.   

I was surprised how much everyone really enjoyed the IHC Pinot but going through the old Copia tasting checklist I found my opinion change quite a bit.  

I had a set of picnic glasses and a waiter's corkscrew to work with so this is about as basic a wine experience as you are going to get.  The appearance on the pour is light and clear, as a good Pinot Gris would be.  The nose on this Pinot Gris is simple and lightly citrus.  The taste is clean, refreshing and fruity almost like a summer peach.  The aftertaste unlike other lower price point wine is smooth without the bitterness of say a two buck chuck.  By the way the Miyamura team won the soccer competition and the water balloon toss winning a beach ball and a bag of rice if you were wondering.  

I drank the Cab with some peppered tri tip  tonight.that I put in the slow cooker before work.  The Cab is as smooth as I remember it, the taste is simple and dark berry accented table wine which is wonderful  for a weekday meal with the family.  All in all not bad for $4 and a heck of a lot better drinkability wise than the closest competition.  

Cheers!