WineLife365

My wife and I recently celebrated our sixteen year wedding anniversary.  To mark this special occasion we thought that it would be nice to celebrate it with a bottle of Bubbly.  So, I hopped in the car and took a trip to my favorite local wine shop and pondered over whether to pick up a real French Champagne or some other type of Bubbly.  I decided to roll the dice on a California Sparkler that I was not familiar with – it was a non-vintage Roederer Estate Anderson Valley Brut Rose.  I usually grab for a reliable “Brut”, but on this occasion for some odd reason, I thought that I’d throw caution to the wind and surprise the missus with a bottle of “Brut Rose” instead.  Why, you may ask?  I have no idea.  But I prayed to the wine gods that my wife would enjoy it!

As it turned out, my gamble did (fortunately for me) pay off!  This Brut Rose was a hit with the both of us.  The Roederer Estate Anderson Valley Brut Rose tasted very French to me, but without the French Champagne price tag.  This commonly found sparkler is usually priced for less than $30 (I paid $26.99).  It’s a blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay grapes.  It has a delicious raspberry and strawberry flavor that just begs for you to sit on the deck and sip with someone special.  After sharing a couple glasses, my wife and I decided that we’d put a stopper in the bottle and maybe finish it in the next day or so.

Well, the next day came and went… and the day after that also came and went.  On the 5^th day after first opening this Sparkler, I found this half-finished bottle sitting way back in our fridge behind the leftover BBQ and juice boxes.  I pulled it out and thought, “What the heck…what do we have to lose?”.  To our surprise, this Sparkler actually “popped” when I took the stopper out.  And what really surprised both of us was that it tasted even better after 5 extra days of “aging”!

Who said it’s never as good as the first time…  

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