It’s Christmas Eve, the holiday rush and panic is upon us. For those who are done shopping and relaxing with a glass of wine in your hand, I applaud you, I’m jealous but I applaud you. Maybe one day I will be just like you, sitting back savoring that wonderful glass and appreciating it for the work of art that it is, not swilling it down to numb the abject terror that I’ve forgotten someone.

For our Christmas dinner with our friends, I had planned on making veal parmesan, but I ended up with an abundance of avocados from work and changed the menu to steak and chicken fajitas with guacamole. For the wine G and S brought us a couple of bottles of wine that we’ve never had before. Since we are always up to try just about anything the wines they bring can be very interesting. This time was no different.

The first bottle we opened and drank was called. Cheeseburger Red, a California red wine from Santa Barbara County. It is cellared and bottled by Rootstock Cellars in Orcutt, California. We had a really good laugh about the label, mainly because a couple of years ago I bought a bottle of wine called Pizza Red that was absolutely horrible, only mixing it with fruit juice made it palatable. Needless to say, we were not holding out much hope for the Cheeseburger Red. Surprisingly it wasn’t that bad. It was drinkable, with 13.2% alcohol, only a bit harsh and it was fairly smooth with a medium finish. Overall it was very tasty compared to my marketing ploy purchase.

In keeping with the quirky wine theme, the second bottle was called, Chateau Mylord Cuvee Milady, a French Bordeaux. It had 14% alcohol and had a smoky shiraz earthy taste. It was drinkable also, dry with a full finish.

Overall both wines were really fun to drink and we had a good laugh over the fact that we all fall for the marketing side of wine. Sometimes we find a few treasures among the masses.