Uncorked: Sweet Cherry Wine by Stone Cliff Winery

"Made from Door County cherries, one could not ask for a more flavorful sweet bottle of wine. Imagine served with chocolates, ice cream, cherry braised pork chops or just plain sipping. It is best described as "cherry pie in a bottle." Serve chilled and enjoy."

FROM

Stone Cliff Winery

Dubuque, IA

PRICE       
$14.00 

             
Mike

Yes. It has been a long time since we did a wine review.  So, to make sure Jennie stops 'wine'ing about when we're going to do one, here we go.  UNCORKED AND ALL CRUNKED.

What are we reviewing today?  A dessert table wine.  Why is table wine called table wine?  I don't know but when I find out I'll make sure to blog about it.  What is in this wines' table? CHERRIES.  I know what you're thinking, "Wine isn't made from cherries douchenozzle!  They make wine from grapes and baby tears, and maybe a little virgin sweat for good measure.  Cherries are not grapes nor are they baby tears nor virgin sweatiness."

Yes, wine is made from grapes.  Usually.  But this wine is made from cherries and baby tears.  I should know, I saw them wringing out the babies when we were there sampling their extraordinarily enticing elixirs of evil.  I can't say for certain that there is also any virgin sweat in this stuff, there might be, but the people working there said they were from Iowa and Illinois, not Virginia.

So, what does this taste like? Juicy Juice for moms who host parties with costume jewellery and need something light and actually good tasting before they get into the hard stuff.  Like Franzia.  Or maybe Boones Farm if they're really going to get crazy and need to do it cheap. 

If you sniff the glass you'll get a very sweet aroma.  Your first thought should probably be, "This probably is going to taste like a champagne spritzer."  If any other thought flows through your head you are either dead or don't drink very much adult grape juice.  The next logical progression would probably be to grimace and milk the hell out of that one glass for the next 18 hours of gossip and drunken Desperate Housewife tales of debauchery and hot mailmen (or women.  We're inclusive around here).

The start is very crisp - this is a pretty dry dessert wine. You get quite a lot of fruit and not a whole lot of anything else.  It's labelled "sweet" after all; which it is I guess, as in "it doesn't taste like turpentine or baboon ass".  I'm assuming by "sweet" they actually meant, "yes, this is made out of friggin' CHERRIES. It will get you drunk as hell because it's kind of fizzy and bubbly and you think it's a chick drink."  Then you wake up in the drunk tank on the morning edition of TMZ with a huge picture of yourself dry humping Janet Jackson or something weird like that.

For the ability to get you rolling and tasting actually pretty good, and for putting your friends to shame when they try to chug your new found "chick drink," this wine gets 4 belches out of 5.

Jennie

Yes, my husband's humor is just that special.

This Sweet Cherry Wine is made by Stone Cliff Winery.  These cats are out of Dubuque and housed in a repurposed brewery.  We picked this wine up directly from their tasting room, though it's also easy to find at HyVee.

As Mike has already relayed, this is a tasty dessert wine.  The cherry flavor is dark without being too heavy.  If you've ever tried the berry wines from the Amanas, this is one step lighter.

It is excellent with dark chocolate.  I had it one night with a nice 60% dark chocolate square and the next with just plain old chocolate chips.  Good for sipping on the couch, bundled up in the blankets as you watch the leaves blow around.  I imagine it's good slightly warmed.

The only downside is that this doesn't last too well opened in the fridge.  We had half a bottle left and returned to it 3 days later.  The taste had definitely changed - the finish was a little harder than before.  That could have something to do with our fridge, who knows.

I would definitely buy this again.  4 corks out of 5.  

An Anniversary in Dubuque

Mike and I shared a wonderful 10-year anniversary weekend in Dubuque recently.  Despite being in the throes of a sinus infection, I had a relaxing time.  We kept some costs to a minimum while letting ourselves be free with the pocketbook on others.

And before getting into this, my apologies for the photography - it's pretty clear which photos were taken off of my little Casio and which are products of Mike's Canon. 

Dinner at L. May Eatery

Despite our numerous visits to Dubuque, we don't do much eating there.  I found this restaurant while searching online and liked their menu selection.

7-grain bread with a garlic/sun-dried tomato butter - Mike ate both our slices due to my oat intolerance :(  The salad, however, had a wonderfully refreshing citrus vinaigrette.

For the man of the hour, lobster lasagna - it was gone in about 4 monstrous bites

For the lady with the stuffy nose, a simple tomato, basil, mozzarella pizza with balsamic reduction.  Barely shown in the red dish  - scalloped sweet potatoes that were wonderfully spicy - must figure out what was in it! 

The food was outstanding!  We had not had a good meal on that level for some time (restaurant options in Cedar Rapids are pretty mediocre).

Being our anniversary dinner, we didn't put any checks on our tab.  L. May is the kind of place where if you are careful, you can walk out with a stuffed belly for around $35 for two people.

But if you were us that night and order two beers, a martini, lobster pasta, pizza, an extra salad, scalloped sweet potatoes, bread pudding AND a brownie, you will easily double that with tip.  

We had no regrets :)

Fenlon Place Elevator

This is one Dubuque curiosity we've driven by many a time but hadn't checked out.  It's called a funicular railway and it claims to be the shortest and steepest one in the world. 

We paid a whopping $4 for the two of us to make a round trip.  It was hardship I tell ya ;)

View going up ...

View looking down ...

At the top, we were rewarded with gorgeous views of the city and the River.

Shot Tower

Another unique landmark along the riverfront is the Shot Tower.  A relic of the lead industry at the turn of the century, the structure stands awaiting restoration from the city.  Mike enviously pondered the excellent views that surely could be seen from the top.

Stone Cliff Winery

I'd seen Stone Cliff wines at HyVee numerous times but hadn't been brave enough to commit to a whole bottle.  So we made the trip to their tasting room (bottom right), which is located in a historic brewery. 

Most wineries offer a tasting where you pay $5 to sample 5 wines.  It's a great way to try a variety without paying for a whole bottle.   

Between the two of us, we sampled virtually all of Stone Cliff's offerings.  We also got appetizers to serve as a light lunch.

We quite enjoyed the wines.  Smooth without being fussy - simple flavors that linger on the palette.  There's something very Midwest about these wines.

The price is a bargain - their most expensive bottle is $12!

We made it out after a total of 10 samples, two appetizer, and two bottles of wine for home (a cherry and semi-sweet red) only $40 in the hole.

This ended up being quite the inexpensive outing, given that our bed-and-breakfast was free (review here).  All in all, we spent just over $150 for two days out of town, including gas, food, and wine.  

It was a relaxing and unhurried trip - precisely what we needed.

Uncorked Series –- All-Night White

Note that this is the first time Mike is assisting with an actual blog post.  You are all duly warned.  Read at your own risk.

Welcome to Mike and Jennie present: UNCORKED AND ALL CRUNKED!

Mike (narrating in a faux radio voice)

You're poor.  You're beyond broke. You need to get drunk and do it cheap. Beer is expensive and the swill you can afford tastes like the bad side of a baboon's red a*s. You need ... WINE. But you can only get a 750mL bottle for under 13 dollars. 

To avoid getting cheap wine that's just as bad as red baboon a*s, we are going to help you avoid stage fright when sitting in that most wonderful aisle at the grocery store (or cheap booze joint) where all the glorious fermented grape juice sits. Waiting for you to come and drink yourself out of all the poor, broke unhappiness you find yourself sitting in the grocery store (or cheap booze joint) because of. 

Jennie

Well that was special.  If you got lost in all that rambling, here's the low down – we're going to review wines on the cheap.  All under $15, we're going to prove that you can enjoy well-crafted wines without breaking the bank.

Wine #1

All-Night White by Jasper Winery (Des Moines, IA)

Description

"Made from the Niagara variety, this white wine is soft and sweet with flavors of freshly picked grapes and honeysuckle."

 

Price

$9.99 at HyVee

Mike's review

Well. This stuff was alright. Not great, not bad. You see, I am a Riesling freak.  Nothing will ever beat a bottle of Relax and a monster stogy after eating too much steak and hanging around heckling the moron Iowa students that live in our complex. 

Needless to say, this was a great way to spend 10 bux. "Flavors of freshly picked grapes and honeysuckle"? How about a kickass glass of dry dessert wine that has notes of AWESOME. Really, the last sweet wine I used to drink was a Moscato D'Asti, and that was something gross enough to put on Cap'n Crunch for breakfast. 

This is not something you will put on cereal. This is not something you will drink for breakfast, unless you have a problem. This is something you will sip on after eating oven roasted pork chops and mashed yams with brown sugar while heckling moron Iowa students on the porch. Yes, as you may have noticed, I repeat things. Jennie has also pointed that out to me. But, after reading this review, you will also determine that this wine is EXCELLENT for not only heckling moron Iowa students, but any moron college student you may have in your proximity. I give this wine 3 belches out of 5.  

Jennie's review

Whereas Mike likes a dry wine, I'm a dessert wine girl.  So finding a wine that both of us can enjoy is a bit of a challenge.  This wine caught our attention because it's an Iowan wine.  I like the idea of spending my limited amount of money on something that will benefit people in the state.

This wine was decent.  It says it's a "sweet white table wine," but there can be a difference between sweet table and dessert wine.  It wasn't sweet enough for me to go more than 1 glass in a sitting, but it was nice to sip on while watching Food Network on a Friday night.  The second night we paired it with pork chops, which brought out a more acidic profile.  I'm not too sure about the honeysuckle part.  I'm familiar with honeysuckle in a Bath and Body Works kind of context, but this definitely had "floral notes," to use the lingo.  I give this wine 3 corks out of 5. 

*MIKE'S FULL DISCLOSURE - So, we don't ACTUALLY have a porch that faces the dumb college students that live here. As Jennie has so graciously pointed out, it is also February and the patio we do have is covered in 2 feet of snow. But if it wasn't February and if we did have a porch that faced the dumb Iowa students here, they would totally get heckled for being idiots while I was getting crunked up on this wine.

To view more wines by Jasper Winery, check out http://www.jasperwinery.com/index.php