D. Honig over at Two Days Per Bottle is the host of the latest Wine Blogging Wednesday installment, and it’s a provocative one: “a toast to the end of the Bush era.” Of course this must mean different things to different people, and we definitely have our feelings on all matters political.

However, given our tricky position of being both a wine blog and a wine shop, we think we’re going to sit this WBW out — we know our customers have varying political view points, and we wouldn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable in our virtual space in the case that their ideas don’t conform to ours.

So, please forgive our absence this round…but go over to Two Days Per Bottle where you’ll be able to read D. Honig’s entry and, eventually, his round-up of the dozens other bloggers writing on the theme.

To close, it does remain to be seen whether the Bush era is really over. Depending which way things go on November 4th, we’ll be opening a bottle of Godmé Blanc de Noirs Champagne to celebrate, or a bottle of Whisky to drown our sorrows. We’ll leave it to you to guess what outcome we’ll cheer and which will surely send us on a bender.

I think I misstated things in the Wine Blogging Wednesday post below. See, when I spent my honeymoon in Tuscany, I drank just as many two-Euro carafes of restaurant house wine, as I did bottles of Brunello. Actually, far more. And my hubby and I truly enjoyed these unnamed, bargain wines.

Feeling guilty for not having really participated in the monthly wine meme, I rectified matters on Friday evening, by ordering a bottle of the 2006 Casanova di Neri Rosso di Casanova di Neri (formerly their Rosso di Montalcino) with dinner at Osteria La Buca. This is the perfect wine representing an in-between point from the far extremes of the two-Euro carafes and the pricier Brunellos.

On the list at La Buca, the wine cost about $60, which is not totally unreasonable (but perhaps begins to push the outer limits of fairness; more reasonable is the $90 for a bottle of the Casanova di Neri 2003 Brunello, but I decided that wine just wouldn’t be ready to drink at this point). At retail, the Rosso appears to be available for the $20 to $30 range.

More important, the wine was just lovely to drink. Very tight upon opening, it took merely twenty minutes to start showing all the red cherry, a good deal of smoke and a bit of scorched/tarry earth that I associate with Tuscan reds. Mouth watering acidity made this a great match with food. I could drink this wine all the time.

On a side note, you should all go check out Osteria La Buca for the food and atmosphere — as well as the great service of newly installed Sommelier Alessia Botturi. She has imported several of the wines on the list herself, including a sparkling Pinot Nero we can’t wait to sample.

This is going to be a brief post. It’s Wine Blogging Wednesday, and the theme from Lenn Thompson is a good one: to choose a wine that gets you back to your roots as a wine drinker and wine lover. Sort of ‘the wine that changed your life,’ if you will. Read more…

Quick tasting note for Wine Blogging Wednesday #47, hosted by Grape Juice, a Canadian wine blog extraordinaire. We tasted the 2004 l’Aventure Estate Syrah from Paso Robles at a dinner party on Saturday night, so the “S” in this case comes from the grape variety.

Sorry we couldn’t get a whole lot more creative than that and also encompass the producer, region, or fantasy wine name. If we weren’t being all economical and whatnot, perhaps we would have cracked open a Super-Tuscan from Sassicaia. Oh well, next time this theme comes around, perhaps we won’t be in penny-pinching mode (brought to us by the economic downturn not to be referred to as a recession).

In any case, back to the wine…the 2004 l’Aventure Syrah was a bit of a disappointment. Too big, too bold, too everything. But mostly, it smelled and tasted of Dimetapp which was a big flaw for us, though we’re pretty sure there was nothing “off” about the bottle. Just too grapey and medicinal for us. We couldn’t get past it. Apparently Dimetapp is now some sort of controlled substance, though our parents didn’t have an issue plying us with it when we had the sniffles in the 1970s and 80s. Ah, those were the days…

There’s a silver lining, though. Considering we used to guzzle Dimetapp proper when we were more regular viewers of Sesame Street, the originator of the “brought to you by the letter…” theme, we think this is the perfect wine for this particular Wine Blogging Wednesday. Even if we plan to never drink it again.

Cheers!