Showdown: California vs Argentina

This month we kinda borrowed an idea from The Second Glass and did our own "Wine Showdown" pitting California versus Argentina in a Battle Royale.  We came, we drank, we judged, we drank, we drank some more, and more, and.....

....and it was awesome!

THE WHITES:

Round 1: Crios Torrantes (Arg) v. Dancing Bull Savignon Blanc (Cali)

Winner: Not a terribly close race, Argentina won 4-2

Round 2: Murphy-Goode Savignon Blanc (Cali) v Byron Chardonnay (Cali)
Unfortunately this is the only place where we didn't have an Argentinian wine to compete with the Californian... so we just compared the two anyway.

Winner: Not surprisingly, but California won :)  Specifically, the Byron Chardonnay!  See, Chard doesn't have to be feared.


THE REDS

Round 3: Llama Malbec (Arg) v Five Rivers Merlot (Cali)
Winner:  Argentina won with a score of 5-3.  Everyone just loves a Malbec.

Round 4: Domaine Jean Bousquet Cabernet Savignon (Arg) v 90+ Merlot (Cali)
Winner: In a similar battle, Argentina pulled through here with a score of 5-3

Hmm... This is a tough call to make, I'll have to think on it.  Should I include the food pairings in the decision?

THE FOOD

California-inspired salad of arugula, beets, walnuts, avocado & goat cheese in frico (Parmesan cheese cups), for recipe click here:

Hummus and chips
Antipasti (peppers, marinated artichokes, olives, etc)
Broccoli & Cheese bites
Asian Veggie Dumplings
Fruit (pineapple, strawberries, melon, etc)
Bread
Cheese (Queso Fresco, Manchego, and 2 others that I can't remember the names of....)

And for dessert, adorable little cupcakes:

All in all, it was a great night and I can say that after some deliberation, I'm ready to declare a winner:

ARGENTINA

Happy drinking!

I'm feeling so Fuso...

Last night for dinner I made some angel hair pasta with puttenesca sauce.... straight up whore pasta!  Yeah baby!  With it, Boyfriend and I drank a 2008 FUSO Barbera from Colli Tortonesi Vineyard.  I picked this one because I like that Barbera's aren't "big reds" but hold up well to the acid in tomato sauces.   

Daily drinking wine in Italy is called sfuso, which is usually reserved for the locals (or, sadly, sold off to co-ops and mixed with all kinds of inferior wine; sort of like the Italian version of $2-chuck).

The back label does a good job explaining the sfuso / fuso pun :

"Fuso: play on words for an authentic daily drinker: from the Italian sfuso, which is the everyday drinking wine, and the Italian word fuso, which is used to describe a person feeling “out of it,” or, “out of sorts.”"

This wine was vinified in steel and had a classic fruity-ness (cranberry / raspberry). It was pretty delicious and I thought it paired nicely with dinner.  Interestingly, once dinner was over.... my next glass seemed less tasty.  Ahhhh, maybe I'm finally discovering the secret to good pairings!