CMS? Complete Meaning Surfaced
As we come to the end of the Ultimate Blog Party 2009 I have to say how impressed I am with the success of it. Up until March 20th I had had NO comments on this General Wine Thoughts site. Since then I’ve had over ten comments and they’re still coming in and they’re all SO positive! Thank you to everyone who stopped by and for your wonderful comments and I have myself visited some great blogs from other people.
Today I am going to write about a couple of other wines from one winery that are reasonably priced (no, not under $3.00!) and worth a try. You may have already tried them. I’m talking about the CMS wines of Hedges Family Estate.
With the popularity of wine on the steep climb upwards, the competition can become very fierce for the consumer dollar. Winery’s try to come up with clever ways of marketing their wine so that it catches the eye of the consumer: Animals on the labels, play on words—all sorts of things. They also come up with catchy names and that is what Hedges Family Estates has done with their CMS.
The white CMS is 35% Chardonnay, 3% Marsanne and 62% Sauvignon Blanc and it’s pretty good. Smooth and creamy, this white wine is about 13 bucks in the store. It’s an interesting combination of grape varietals that seem to work, though I remember this wine tasting better the first go around than it did this go around, which is the 2007 version. There is some mango on the mid tongue that is nice but an awkward finish. The down side is that there is virtually no nose on this wine, which I miss because I REALLY like a wine with a great nose. All in all, however, it’s a wine to try, to be sure.
Then I opened their red CMS and, well, this is a GREAT deal! While watching American Idol I enjoyed the 2007 CMS which is 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, 51% Merlot and 7% Syrah and it really is a great value at about ten bucks a bottle. The nose has a hint of smoky-ness to it but you get some alcohol as well. The taste is the result of a really nice combination of the grape varietals Hedges has chosen with some blueberry, bing and black cherry. I actually tasted the Cabernet Sauvignon more than the other varietals. Friends of mine, Lin and Marci Cooper, served this at their Christmas party about three years ago and I was very impressed then and it hasn’t depreciated now.
If you had to choose between the two I would go with the red CMS because it’s less money and, in my opinion, better tasting. But both are worthy.
On the last post I promised to tell you about the toast Shelley and I do on EACH and EVERY bottle of wine we open. You’ve read about the Tastings column found in the Wall Street Journal that I read on Friday’s from Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher and how they have come up with Open That Bottle Night which is designed to get people to open that one bottle of wine that never seems to get opened because the situation doesn’t seem to be big enough (See my post about Open That Bottle Night). We first learned of these two from their book, “Love By The Glass: Tasting Notes From A Marriage”. If you asked me to recommend just one book I would say READ THIS ONE! This book is absolutely awesome! Romance and wine rolled into one!
Anyway, John and Dottie toast every bottle that they open with the same toast. Read the book to find out what THAT is but OUR toast is our own. I look into Shelley’s eyes and say, “To your giggles” and she looks right at me, and says, “To your kisses. (Hey, I can’t help it that I kiss well.) THAT is the toast we make with each and every bottle of wine we open whether we’ve had it before or not. We even have it etched in the base of our glasses. Hers says TYK and mine says TYG. Dumb? Maybe, but it works for us because we are in love and we enjoy each other and our wine. And we know that what ever we go through in life we will always have each other and our wine. And everyone should know that feeling.
Until next time, bottoms up.
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