WineBites

your guide to the best of wine and food

good wine doesn't have to be expensive

According to the New York Times, there are around 22,000 wines available to drink. That's a different wine every day for 60 years.

Of those 22,000, some are expensive and some are dreadful, but there is a wealth of wonderful and affordable wines to be had -- if you know which ones to buy.

That's where WineBites comes in.

We're wine consumers just like you. We don't drink $30 bottles of wine every night and we don't "sip and spit" dozens of wines at a sitting trying to rank them on a 100-point scale.

Like you, we enjoy well-priced wines that are great by themselves, but even better with food -- which is what wine was made for.

We're constantly looking for the best wines at the best price -- usually under $15 a bottle.

In WineNotes, we tell you about our best finds and the food combinations we think the wine will enhance. WineNotes is a blog with an RSS feed you can subscribe to. Simply visit WineNotes and click on the RSS button to subscribe.

OF NOTE

Portello Wine Cafe, Bend OR (in Travel)
Excellent selection of wines by the glass (good selection of beer as well). All wines by the glass are $5 each every day until 3:00pm (more . . .)

Montevina Barbera (in WineNotes)
Red wine bombs are everywhere these days. We just visited one winery and was served a Sangiovese that was 16.5% alcohol. Big fruit + lots of alcohol = wine bomb.

It makes you appreciate a winery that can produce a nicely balanced red wine that is enjoyable to drink. Montevina Barbera is one of those wines. (More . . .)

ZAP 2008
Over 250 wineries pouring two or more different Zinfandels each -- it's heaven on earth for Zin lovers. (More . . .)

Barnard Griffin Wins
Barnard Griffin won Best of Class and the Pink Sweepstakes for its 2007 Rose of Sangiovese at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. The Washington state winery also won a Double Gold for its 2005 Merlot, Columbia Valley, a Gold for its 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, Columbia Valley, and a Silver award for its 2004 Ciel du Cheval Reserve from Red Mountain.

Cape Cod Wine
It wasn't that long ago that we finally had a winery in every state in the union, but it's still surprising when you run across a winery in an area you don't associate with wine.

That's how we felt when we discovered Truro Vineyards of Cape Cod on a recent trip there.